AS Coursework Reflection

Post - Production

-What have you learned from your audience feedback? 

From interviewing people that are going to be in our film and looking at the serveys we asked the public to complete, we found out that many people agreed with the conventions on a horror movie; 92% of the people we asked felt that different sounds create different emotions in horror movies which we then took on peoples opinions and views. We also got a lot of feedback after we had finished our film, many people like the build up we created with the sounds and slow paced shots, they also agreed that the girl protagonist was a good way to intrigue our target audience of young males. Some of the audience mentioned the non diegetic sound being in sync with the actions towards the end of the two minutes  but others disagreed and felt it could've been a lot sharper and in time, which taught us that we should allow someone to watch our film before we feel it is completely finished as they might mention something they will feel is a mistake while we didn't notice.

-What editing decisions were made? How did they inform the production?
As a group we all decided we definitely wanted to edit the film to conform to the usual horror movie, using editing to do this we made shots longer paced to build tension within the audience; we used lots of close ups and match on action to not give too much away about the characters etc, and we also added in a lot of long shots to show the location so the audience will feel as though they can relate more to what the characters in the film are experiencing. When it came to which one of us edited the film, we never made a proper decision as we all felt it would be best for all of us to be together when this process took place, which may seem as though it would take more time, but meeting out of school to edit and having a clear and detailed story board made it a lot easier to work together and not do the editing separately.

-What particular editing tools were used and to what effect?
We mainly used the cropping tool to make sure each clip would run smoothly, especially the match on action sequences, this was to make the opening two minutes look as professional and realistic as possible. Cropping the clips was a continuous technique we used through out editing the film, but we also used many other tools to add different effects and emotions, such as using a transition to show that time had passed, creating enigmas but also keeping the plot easy to follow. An editing tool we used to make our film look more like a real movie is the text tool, this was to add the opening credits, which at first we felt we made them run too quickly which changed the effect on the audience completely; slowing them down and using a faded transition made the genre a lot more obvious.

-How did the post-production process enhance the overall production?
The post prediction process helped me and the rest of my group to get a better idea on how creating a film works, from getting constructive criticism to learning different editing techniques making our opening two minutes a stronger piece. Getting feedback was very useful and benefited our production most as it gave us a view on how other people would see our film; asking people from our target audience if they felt it was appealing to them helped us a lot to continue with the same style of horror.

AS Coursework Reflection

Research and Planning

-What real media and audiences did you look at?

In the early stages of planning our production, we looked at many different websites to see how they promoted their film as well as magazines, TV adverts and billboard displays, doing so gave us a much better idea on how real productions would get their audiences appeal making them want to go and see the film. We mainly looked at action/adventure films because at this point we weren't sure what genre we wanted to created; in particular, The Hobbit and Bat Man. 

-How did they inform your thinking about your media production? 

When looking at the Facebook page for The Hobbit, we were informed about how the creative sides of production can be as it showed this in video diaries that were uploaded. These video diaries also gave us an in site on who was going to be in the movie, the settings of the film etc, which created unique selling points as the actors starred in the film are popular and well known.

-How did you record all that research? 

The easiest way to record all the research we made was by adding it to our blog pages, creating a new document for each area of research. We didn't always right about each piece of information we gathered, we sometimes recorded video footage, used pictures etc. Each post showed our progress and changes we made to convert to the stereotypes of a horror.

-What secondary research was undertaken? 

Once we knew what type of research we had to do of our own for our own film, we began to look at different ways we could present our characters, by looking up YouTube tutorials of protagonist makeup ideas, because we wanted our victim to appear vulnerable and innocent we decided to dress her in bright sensible colours as thats what the videos taught us. We also began to look at different fonts that other movies of the same genre have used, this was to make sure we didn't subvert the stereotypical expectations in which a horror movie would include, going on to look at film posters and DVD covers throughout the years to make sure our font was upto date and not completely clichéd from the older movies. After finding which font and which costumes we wanted to take on for our opening two minutes, we then began to look at different sounds and music to add in to created a more haunting effect. We looked from a range of violin playing and piano to screams and footsteps.

-What is the effectiveness of these kinds of research?
This research effected our production as it gave us a clearer understanding on what everyone else thinks is the conventions of this genre, the research also allowed us to look further into creating a good horror movie that would appeal to its target audience, making our final opening two minutes stronger. Looking at different posters and web pages let us explore different types of media and advertising for films, which benefited the way we presented our two minutes by using the fonts and colours as inspiration because of their connotations.

AS Coursework Reflection

Creativity:

-Where did ideas come from?

Me and my group took a long time to come up with an idea that we were all knew we would be satified with when it came to completing our film; the only thing we all agreed on at first was that we wanted the genre to be horror. Before we began to plan and create our movie we all had ideas which we knew we could alter to make everyones ideas count.

-How did you work collaboratively to share ideas?

To share our ideas we got together and wrote each indivisual idea down then combined them to get our final piece - 'The Woods'. Once deciding the plot of the film, we then decided all the other details from the font of the title font to the length of each shot. We then created a shot list to write all these notes down and to get a better idea on how each shot would look which we knew would make filming process a lot quicker easier.

-How did you change things?
No one in our group changed any of our original ideas, we just combined them to make something we would all be happy with. If I had to say we changed something, I would say the only thing we changed was the timing of the whole production as we went over two minutes.

-How did you use tools like Adobe Premier Elements etc to achieve something imaginative?
To create our two minutes to the best of our abilities we used tools such as Adobe Premier Elements and other softwares to add transitions, our titles, sounds and effects to mainly make our piece fit together nicely and to show that our genre of film we decided to do was horror. For example, the ambient sounds and lighting was used to build tension and an atmosphere for those watching. We also used other different softwares to create our title and font which also showed our creativity and understanding on what a horror movie would be expected to be like.

-What stylistic techniques were used to appeal to the audience?
As our target audience was mainly young males, aged from around 15-25, we decided to make the main character a girl from the same age group as they would be attracted to her. Something we also did to make our film appeal to a much broader audience would be the settings as we used mundane realism to make the audience feel as though they can relate much more to what they are watching no matter what genre or age they are. By making sure our opening two minutes was shot in a working/middle class home means watching it would make it more intense and would leave a longer lasting effect event when the movie is over and the audience goes back home.

-What was the intended outcome of the production?

Our intended outcome would be to create an opening two minutes that would show our knowledge on what makes a movie appealing to certain audience of people, in our case it would be a making a horror movie appealing to mainly young males. We also wanted to show that we understand the different camera shots, the difference between diegetic and non diegetic sound etc. 

-How were these outcomes achieved in terms of page layout and camera shot choices?
These outcomes were achieved as we managed to make each shot relevant to the sequence, making the two minutes run smoother. The way we presented our ideas on our blog pages showed we were organised as well as enthusiastic about creating our film, an example of this are our story boards because we made sure they were exactly as we wanted each shot to look like once filmed and ready to edit.