Activity Four - Media Technology Used

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Camera:Nikon D3200

We used this to film and capture all our shots within and behind the scenes of our trailer. We used this because it provided us with a high defined picture, which would make our production even more professional. This camera also has its benefits as it has many features which aided us to producing 'Betrayal'. Firstly, this camera allowed us to alter the exposure, which made our duration of filming easier as it allowed us to ensure all the lighting was the same within all shots. This meant that we didn't have to continuously return to film, therefore avoid time wasting. Another benefit to using this camera was that it had adjustable and changeable lens, which ensured consistently high resolution within different shots; as if we used the same lens for all shots it would mean that extreme close up would be blurry and not as clear. Also the Nikon D3200 is also a manual camera which means we can change the featrues to suit what we want to portray. For example we can manually

change the focus, colour saturation, exposure and attach flashes and lens to it, enabling us to capture the best shot possible. For example when the protagonist is in the foreground of the shot, blurred within the background is the antagonist. This camera also allows us to attach a tripod to the base of it so we can produce a steady and stable shot, therefore would not disrupt the continuity of the trailer. This camera also allowed us to take picture of which was perfect during the research and planning stages of this process. This is because it allowed us to take pictures of different locations and angles, so we could compare and decide which locations and shots we should use for the final production. The final advantage of using this camera was that it is lightweight, therefore easy to transport and carry. This provided us with the ability to vary our shots, for high to low, as it was easy to transport.

Computer Software- iMovie and Adobe Premiere Elements 10

At the beginning of the editing stage, we used Adobe Premiere elements 10, which we used to cut each shot to desired duration. However, collectively as a group, we decided not to use this software for further use, This is because we felt that from our AS year, iMovie was more beneficial to use as we know everything about how to use it, so therefore what would make our final production effective. This would mean that editng would not be as time consuming as if we used Premiere Elements. There are many features on this software which made our production what it is, for

example, the discrete non diegetic sound effects was part of this software. This software also alloowed us to create our own institutions so it wouls make our trailer appear professional and allowed us to show our creative abilities. In comparison with our peers, they found it difficult to produce their own as they were restriected ones they had to choose from, therefore some didn't suit their genre. However, this was not a problem for our team as we were able to design our institution the way we desired. This therefore made our trailer increasingly more professional.

Other cross platform software such as 'YouTube', allowed us to broadcast our trailer to the whole world. This software means that it would increase the popularity of our film and therefore increase our target audience. 

Activity Three - Feedback From Peers

This is our audience feedback for our trailer 'Betrayal'. This is a vital process which occurs, so we know what our audience liked, didn't like and therefore improve upon. We asked our peers to watch our trailer and inform us the strengths aspects present within our production and what we could improve on, so it would be even more professional and successful. From this process we were given many positives, which gives us confidence of what we produced. A few positives were:
-The use of sounds creates an atmospheric situation of the correct genre, horror. Therefore indugling the audience within our trailer
-The use of various of sounds, e.g the hip hop music at the beginning, would draw in the younger audience of our large target audience.
-The use of conventions were used well, instantly telling the audience it is a horror trailer.
-The variety of shots and fast paced editing creates a sense of mystery and suspense. Having the whole trailer build up to face pace editing was effctive and it created tension.

Although we have had many positives, we have also had a few negatives, in which we hope to improve on within the future. The negatives consisted of:
- A consistent appearance of characters throughout trailer. Some characters were only seen in the beginning of the trailer, could cause confusion of the importance of those characters or give certain events away, for example; audience could think they are dead.
-Could use even more camera shots, varying the juxaposition of them
-Could of drawn out the sounds more to make it flow better.

From this feedback we can pinpoint the few mistakes and weaknesses of our porduction, allowing us the ability to improve them. This would continuously aid us to develop our skills of film-making, which will be vital for our future we wish to take.

Activity Two - Commentary

This is a running commentary of our trailer 'Betrayal'. This is to show our self analysis of our production, on why we chose certain shots and the effectiveness of different aspects within it; mise en scene, camera shots, lighting...

Evaluation Activity One - Screenshots Of Final Piece

Title of our film - For our title, we decided to use a medium camera shot as we wanted to include our antagonist and location in the title to hint to the audience more about the plot. We also liked the unique idea of flashing our it with an 'inverted' effect quickly and suddenly to make the audience feel alert; building up their adrenaline for the final shot. The text was placed on the right hand side of the screen as we felt this is the area where it contrasted best against the white as the clip flashed, we also decided to put it here because it is metaphorically representing the distorted events that happen in the film. We found this shot effective as the title looks like the trees in the background so the theme is consistent.

Costumes and Props - We wanted our antagonists costumes to be simple and easy looking to achieve, this makes the audience feel on edge because it shows that anyone could be the one causing the haunting events. The masks and hoodies hide the identity of the characters creating more enigmas which leads to the audience wanting to see the entire movie to answer their questions. Our main antagonist has been put into a different mask to the other two characters, the darker coloured hoodie and mask, is meant to show that this particular antagonist is more evil and mind controlling to the other two, as the colour black connotes a more sinister character whereas the grey hoodie and white mask represents the opposite; as though the other two antagonists were possessed to act this way in the film by the main person. This shows there is still some innocence in these two antagonists even though they're committing crimes, leaving the audience to wonder. You can also see from this medium shot, the main antagonist is being followed by the other two, showing his/her dominance. 
The protagonists were put into casual outdoor clothing, this is to show their relation to the audience as they will most likely be working/middle class. The blonde hair and pink scarf will show the innocence of the characters, allowing the audience to know that they are the protagonists and will be victim to the events of the film.

Setting/location - We decided to locate our film in a woods because of the repetitive surroundings wherever you go, leaving the idea of you feeling lost and trapped. This would leave an effect on the audience as they would all be experienced with what a forest is even if they've never been inside one; horror movies such as The Blair Which Project would give them the idea that woods are more of a negative setting choice when it comes to horror films. The way in which the trees covered the sunlight made the clips atmospheric and haunting, so we tried to film later in the day to ensure the sun was lower behind the trees. The idea of the forest was also meant to be use of mundane realism as many people that live in the suburban area or country side will most likely live near a forest, leaving more of an effect on them as they can relate and see the forest they live near as the one in the film. 

How Characters are Introduced - We decided to introduce our characters with the stereotypical idea that all teenagers have an attitude and are selfish. The clip we included of the car playing the loud music shows that the people inside must be young, as the music is created for the teen audience. The conventions of teenagers in horror films shows them as annoying kids that don't have any morals, which means the most annoying one usually dies first, leaving less sympathy for him as he isn't as likable compared to the characters that will make it through the movie. 
We introduced our antagonists by dragging an ax along the floor, causing a grating sound, this will create enigmas for the audience as they still wont be completely sure what genre this movie is as this is the first piece of evidence to them that it is a horror. It also creates an enigma on who this person will be, are they part of the friendship group? Do they know the girls?

Genre of Film - By this part of the trailer (final shot) the audience will most likely understand that the genre of this film is horror, in case they haven't we decided to add this final shot as a conclusion of suspense in which we built up through out the trailer. The close up shot of the young girl hides her surroundings creating an enigma, which already makes the audience scared to see whats going to happen as the suspense and unknown is a convention of horror and usually happens just before the jump. The sounds we used are also responsible for this buildup, as we echoed the sound of the lighter flickering in the first couple of seconds, then as the girl gets grabbed by her mouth a loud bang echoes through the end of the shot, leaving a lasting effect on our audience. All of these effects and techniques get the audience to know the genre of the film. 

Camera work and Editing - We decided to do a variety of different shots at different camera angle and views during our fast paste editing, this was to quickly give snippets of our film without giving too much away; we still made sure that the roles of the antagonists and protagonists was clear. In this screen grab, we used an over the shoulder shot to show the antagonist running towards the person in the girl while holding an ax, the aim of this was to put the audience in this persons point of view and to feel the same fear and adrenaline in which this character would feel. Each fast paste shot fades in and then out to the next one lasting only a couple of seconds each, this is to create enigmas on what happens in each shot to the characters, such as this car shot. As the audience, we don't know what happens when the antagonist gets to the car as we used a faded transition just before we would know, leaving the audience wondering and wanting to see the film to answer these questions.

For this shot, we used a low angle to show the power that the antagonists have in this movie, by using a low angled shot it shows the dominance they have over the antagonists making them stronger characters. We slightly increased the exposure on this shot to show a contrast between the darkness of the trees and then pale sky in the background. This bold background means we all of our attention goes on the movements of the foreground, as we wanted to show the how sinister the location of the film is. The diegetic sound was taken out of this clip so the audience could only hear the non diegetic sound of the heartbeat and dreary music in the background. These sound effect will build up tension more than the diegetic sound of the ax hitting what it will be hitting. 

Our Final Piece - Trailer

This is our final edition of our trailer, 'Betrayal'. 

Audience Theory Evaluation

Our movie trailer for 'Betrayal' conforms to many of the theories in which argue for the main conventions of horror.

Gratifications Theory

Blumler and Katz theory (1970's) links to our trailer as it explains how we use films for different reasons: To be informed, to escape from reality, for entertainment, for social interaction and to identify with characters and situations. In our case, Betrayal would be a way to entertain because of the target audience we have focused around (15-25 year olds). This age group enjoy the adrenaline of being scared (in particular, males) which means watching a horror would be watched for the entertainment values. Female audience members would watch is for the identification of characters as well as entertainment because we have used girls as our protagonists and antagonists, making them feel as though they can relate a lot more to the relationships between the friendship group.

Male Gaze
Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory argues that women are used in media texts to make the male audience happy, as we only used female characters her view appeals to us.Most of our female characters are blonde which shows their weaker side because the 'damsel in distress' is commonly known as a young blonde female in which needs a strong, dominant male to protect them from danger. 

The hypodermic Needle Theory
This theory suggests that media text injects messages straight into the passive audience. Horror films are rated 18+ because those messages are deemed too frightening for the younger audience, for example, The Human Centipede would be considered too disturbing for the younger ages because of the graphic themes. This means the audience is seen as a passive mass who will immediately accept the presented version of events. This links to our film as we show a group of friends in the woods which is mundane realism as this is a regular thing to do that the people watching can relate to. But the events in our film is what this theory relates to because the genre isn't suitable for ages younger than 15 due to the plot; the audience would instantly know its a negative story.

WMJC Productions Presents our final poster - 'Betrayal'

We decided to go with this photo as we like the simplicity of it and how that made it very effective. When we first started to create our film we thought that the main mask we would use was going to be gas mask because generally they are very effective in horror films, but we enjoyed working with the white hockey mask more and therefore chose it for the film poster. The colour of mask is what we thought was most effective; light bounced off and reflected on it which meant that it caught shadows. The main reason we used this photo was because we liked how the camera only grabbed the light of half the mask leaving us with a striking eye looking straight at us but also with the other eye in the dark making the character look even creepier. We took this photo at night time which meant for this photo especially we didn't have to do much editing because we could use the dark lighting to our advantage at the time. This meant that we only really had to make the background a little dark but also fade out the jumper of the antagonist. We chose to keep the numbers on the jumper on display because they looked a bit like a concentration camp identity badge which we thought would give off enigmas to the audience. Who is this person? Where are they from? and What are they doing here?  if you look closely you can see that around the mask there seems to a ring of light, this made it look like there was a light shining just on the mask. The blood stains on the mask make it clear to the audience that this is a horror film and that killing or abuse is shown in the film.

The font we used for the title of our film is called 'Ring bearer’. We used this font because it was simple yet is still showed a hint of the stereotypical horror film font with the pieces of the letters being left out, this gave the font a distressed look. We chose the font to be white because it stands out against the black background but also matches the colour of the mask. Having a light text also means that the distressed look stands out more. We chose to have the title at the bottom of the poster because we had a lot of spare space that we needed to fill but it also meant that we were able to have it larger and more central making it stands out even more. We didn't want to go down the really stereotypical path of using a lot of red because it has started to become a bit tacky, however we used it for our slogan and for the release date but made it a very deep red rather than bright. The slogan we made up is quite evil sounding so the colour red works well with it because it the colour of the devil. We also used it on the release date because we chose to have a that in a small font but the red means that it stands out enough for the audience to notice when the film is coming out. Friday 13th is also very well known to be used in or for horror films because its supposedly an unlucky day and therefore the colour red connotes blood, fear and danger. We chose to have the slogan, release date and actor names in a very similar font to our title font because we didn't want to make it to complicated and busy.