Note to the Moderator

Dear Moderator,

 Thank you for taking the time to look at my blogs, it has taken a lot of time however I am really pleased with what I managed to acheive and I hope you enjoy having a look around.

On my indivdual blog you can find the link to my group blog you can find this link on the right. You can also look at the link to the blogs for the other students in my group and a link back to our teacher’s central blog, called BLK Foundation Blog, which allows you to look at everyones work.

On my individual blog you will find, early ideas for our projects such as my individual research and initial ideas and planning, this was mainly done before we were put into out groups for the task. You can also look at my work on the preliminary task, including the video clip, reflections on the development of the project as it progressed and my answers to the evaluation questions. On my group blog, you can find work that we all did togther such as the planning and the ideas which we progressed throughout the project. I have linked my finished film opening sequence to both blogs at the top of the page.

I've tried to make it as easy as possible for you to navigate around my blogs. Everything is organised in date order from the start of the project in November 2009 until we finished in March 2010. All the labels on the side of this page I have identified as reseacrch, planning, production and evaluation work.On the group blog, we have done the same and the posts I did individually can be found under the label with my name on it.

Thank you for taking the time to look around and I hope you like what you see,
 Ciara Borkowski- 4125

Closing Post!

This project is now officially finished. I've really enjoyed doing it and have loved working with my group!
All my work can be found through links on the sidebar so have a look around
Goodbye :)
xxx

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Brief for Preliminary Task

A continuity task involving filming and editing:

• a character opening a door

• crossing a room

• Sitting in front of another character and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue with them.

This task should demonstrate:

• match on action

• shot/reverse shot

• the 180-degree rule

 Brief for Opening Sequence

To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film.

Your sequence must include:

• Titles throughout

• Some form of copyright-free soundtrack, including sound fx

• Evidence of understanding of continuity editing

• Clear generic signifiers through character, action, mise-en-scene, dialogue etc

Your sequence should be based on:

• A single narrative event or idea

• Only a few characters

• One location ideally
Introduction

It seems like a very long time ago we did are preliminary task however as I thought about this question I realised how much it has really helped me in the actual opening sequence task.. After completing the preliminary task I felt able to approach my main task more open minded and carefully. The preliminary task was very structured compared to how much choice we had with our main task therefore it was vital that I went through each stage carefully making sure I had learnt from the preliminary task and could improve on my work

Evaluation
• Overall without the prelim task I would have felt completely lost it really helped me to think about all stages of the process and made me work as a team again. The main difference between the prelim and main task was the amount of detail and freedom we got. But the prelim really made me think about everything much more carefully. We had to organise a feedback session for our final piece which we did not for the prelim, this gave us a lot more opinions and helped us improve further. The prelim made me work as a team and I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process!

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

hen shooting and editing our opening sequence we have used a large amount of equipment and software which overall has helped us a lot. These clips show my group and I with the equipment:


The clip above shows all our hardware we used out on the shoot. When we were out shooting we faced different problems which in future we are able to learn from. The shed scene was extremely hard to get the lighting right in order to create the correct atmosphere and took a number of re-shoots to get it right. We used a pag light and filtered this light and closed the shutters and the front of the light to get a dimmed spotlight on me lit up in the shed. I think this worked really well and was pleased with the outcome. There were a number of things that went well and not so well on shoot:

PRODUCTION

WHAT I’VE LEARNT ABOUT SHOOTING

• I mainly learnt how much patience I need to get good shots and overall good footage.
• I also learnt that I need to be flexible with time and dates because re shoots are essential and its made easier if everyone is able to attend without major problems.
• Health and Safety is also very important while on shoot especially with weather and outside shots.
• As the shed scene was in a small space we had to learn to work around each other without causing accidents.
• Finally I think the main thing you had to do on shoot was be creative. When storyboarding it is obviously very different to being on set therefore you must think creatively and use all possible equipment to create high standard shots

• 
  
  By doing this project I feel I have learnt a lot more than I knew and I also feel I have progressed and improved lots of skills.
• There has been a lot to remember, I feel especially when it comes to editing as I find this the hardest skill.
• However I have overcome a lot and with help from my team members I’ve been able to push forward and enjoy the whole process

5) How did you attract/ address your audience?

From our audience feedback it seemed all our techniques and tactics paid off and we did attract our audience:

Attracting the audience

Adressing the Audience

• By choosing a set target audience at the beginning we then could focus our opening sequence at them by choosing techniques that would draw them

• We chose a horror film because this is best identified with young male adults and we chose to stick to key conventions of a horror film in order to gain their attention.

• We used Levi-Strauss theory of binary opposites quite significantly with the contrast of light and dark in the house and then in the shed. We had good vs. evil with the murderer and the victim and strong vs. weak with the murderer and the victim once again

                                            

(Dark Shed scene vs. Light Kitchen Scene)

• Our plot had a big twist in it. Too start off with normality in a modern house the audience soon realise he has a disorder and perhaps feel pity but then we show the calendar and play the radio clip their emotions of the audience are quickly switched from perhaps pity to anger and hatred and then we move from this to the scary disruption of the shed scene.

• We also used common themes that our audience would expect to see in a horror film e.g. muder, stalking, obsession and violence.

• We had key iconography in our piece e.g., clean modern kitchen where the murderer lives and where it’s suppose to be reality and then this is linked to the dark dingy small shed where the murder and entrapment takes place.

 

• We appealed their pleasures by doing exactly what they expect to see in a horror film we scared them as we slid into the shed, we expected to play on their emotions and for them to be scared for the girl. This leaves them asking questions and wanting to find out what will happen.

• We shot our piece during the day therefore this added to the emotions we wanted our audience to feel. During the day people usually feel much safer however we show the element of fear when in fact a girl is locked in the shed in broad daylight and nobody knows.

• We used narrative twists of showing the calendar with dates circled and the element of four throughout our opening sequence. We also played the radio new announcement in order to build enigma. This also kept the audience guessing and asking questions

• We got the engagement of our audience also through production and post production. By using a variation of shot types e.g. close ups we drew our audience closer to the action making it feel more real life

• We then used LS to pull them back out and see the wider picture

• By using creative editing e.g. the reverse shot we break the seamlessness of our piece leaving them at one point and then tracking all the way back through the house to a completely different story. This would leave our target audience intrigued as they are a clever audience they would want to work out themselves what’s going on.

• Our props in the piece e.g. the pictures with 1 2 3 4 written above them challenges our audience into linking his OCD and the way in which he stalks girls

Audience Feedback

• Here is a questionaire from the audience feeback we held on the 26th of March in the Media Block. From the turn out of around 65 people I feel we did attract and audience, however the age was a bit younger then we were targeting:

 

From looking through our questionaires I feel we really conveyed the genre and characters and people understood where it would be shown and who it's targeting:

1. The majority of people recognised that are film was targeted at males.
2. A lot of people said that are film was for young adults but a lot also said that it was for teenagers. This could potentially be good for us as we can entice an even larger audience
3. Our rating for our film ranged from 7 out of 10 to 10 out 10
4. Everyone understood the themes of OCD, stalking and obsession
5. Are few improvements were to perhaps speed up the first half of our opening and show more of the girl in the shed.
6. Everyone understood out sequence which was really good feedback and we feel we did reach our target audience

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our core market that we are aiming are film at our young male adults between the ages of 22 to 30 years old. We chose this market mainly due to the state of mind of the main male actor in our piece. We feel that in order to enjoy our piece properly you need to know about OCD and understand the mind of someone with obsessive compulsive disorder. When researching into audiences we felt that more males like horror film rather than females which is why we went for them as core market. We also feel because of the male being the main character this would appeal to more men.

Our secondary market would be females of a similar age as we do have the 4 girls being stalked as our main theme. It would also be something that girls could relate too as when you’re out you must always be careful and know your limits. Again we want the females to be educated as they need to understand the OCD

We believe our audience for the opening sequence would be a niche audience as we have chosen quite a limited age range and have not gone for the mass market which is teenagers.

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

• Our production company is Green Tree Productions they are a small UK based company that specialise in independent films that are low budget, intellectual, gripping and edgy to target young adults (22-30 year olds )

• The media institution that is distributing ‘FIX4TION’ is DBB they are also are a small UK based company that work with ‘Green Tree Production’ in a partnership. DBB’s main focus is distributing horror films and getting them circulated in the UK.

• This media institution is similar to ‘Dogwoof’ which is commonly known to back small independent films.

If we had made a huge Hollywood blockbuster we would expect to see it shown in mainstream cinema s such as the

• Odeon

• Cineworld

• Vue

In order to reach a mass audience to gain as much profit as possible. However ‘FIX4TION’ was made on a low budget and is an independent film therefore DBB would struggle to get it into major cinema due to budget and sometimes content. Instead it would be shown in:

• Small independent cinemas

• Arty cinema

• Exhibitions

For example ours could be given a screening in The Phoenix in North London.

http://www.phoenixcinema.co.uk/

We could also gain a mass audience via the web. If we were to place our film on sites such as YouTube I believe a student film like ours would gain success. It could also be shown on the independent film channel and shown at many different film festivals such as the Edinburgh film Festival.

A good example of a low budget film is ‘Paranormal Activity’ 2009 Peli. It was shown at scream fest horror film festival in 2007 and got a small release in around 9 cinemas in the US. However after Paramount a major distributor bought the domestic rights to the film off DreamWorks Productions it was only then that ‘Paranormal Activity’ gained worldwide succession and made a massive profit. Both DreamWorks and Paramount work in partnership just like DBB and Green Tree Productions. I believe if we did perhaps make our film with a larger profit a major film distributor like Paramount would get behind it as its unique and would gain a large audience and profit.

(Moodboard of Companys and Cinemas)