Final Evaluation - 'Commitment'

Media Evaluation

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Finished Opening Sequence

This is our final sequence.

Music Research

The original music we had in the opening sequence, we felt as a group, didn't fit in well with the genre as it sounded quite oriental and was sounded annoying after a few times of listening to it. Me and Sareena sat down and researched through websites providing copyright free music. Eventually after listening and downloading several tracks, we found the perfect track which we later fitted into our opening sequence.

Filming - Reshooting 9/3/11

From the feedback we recieved from Mr Michie, we all agreed that we needed to shoot some establishing shots as we didn't feel the sequence doesn't make sense. The filming we did went well today. It took us much longer than anticipated similar to the out attempts at filming but we did expect this. We feel the length of the filming was mainly due to the fact that we hadn't tried these shots before so it took longer to film from various angles in order to have various shots to work with and to include in our footage. We also realised that as we went along, some of the shots we had planned on using wouldn't work so we needed to adapt them and shoot them from different angles. We had a better advantage this time shooting thoough as we were using a better camera and tripod than the school had and what we used in our first shooting session.
After filming, I converted the shots into different files using a newer macbook which we had taken home and transfered the shots on the mac we were using to edit.
Stephanie has now began adding in the footage that we had just filmed into the footage that has already been edited.

Rough Cut

Teacher's Feedback

Stephanie, Sareena and myself sat down with Mr Michie and showed him our sequence. We were happy with the feedback as it was mainly positive but Mr Michie suggested to do some more establishing shots with the character walking in and out of the rooms which we felt would be good to put in because when we were filming, Stephanie and myself felt unsure of the lack of entrance and exit shots. Mr Michie also suggested changing the font style because it didn't fit into the genre of our film which is horror/thriller. This is something we also agreed on but was easily changeable in the editing process.
We have decided to film the extra shots on the 9th of March.

Editing

Stephanie and myself found editing a lot harder than first anticipated. We faced problems with the macbook as the files were not in the correct format for Premiere Pro to recognise which I had to resolve by changing the file format using a newer macbook. Another issue was that we did need some help with editing and seeing what transition effects would be best. This advice was harder to achieve because one of the teachers didn't know how to use the macs. We overcame this issue by having to research and look through Premiere Pro, testing out different shot transitions and audio effects.
Editing the footage took longer then we all expected but Stephanie took on the majority of the editing as this was her assigned job. I think having to work out how to use most of the program by ourselves effected the length of the editing process. However, this will benefit us as now we are confident with the program and will be able to confidently edit footage in the future. We looked through the footage which we were happy with in comparison to the previous footage Stephanie had tried to edit. There are still a few things that need resolving in the editing process and I feel there may be some reshooting to be done but overall, editing the second lot of footage was much better than the first shots.

Filming - Reshooting 18/2/11

Stephanie and I sat down to look at our footage and have decided was need to reshoot everything. We have decided to do this using a better quality camera and to reshoot some shots with a different angle. We also had some continuity issues we needed to sort out with would be achievable when doing this reshoot.

These are the results of the re shoot -

Stephanie and myself filmed all of the footage again at my house which we felt much more confident with after filming than the first time. This is because we had learnt from the previous mistakes me have made and we made sure everything including continuity was correct for each shot. We also learnt that the equipment we used in the first shoot was decreasing the quality of the shots so we used a much higher quality camera and we resolved the crooked camera angle by using a different tripod.
We spent another seven hours filming which was probably because we have taken much more care and consideration over what we were doing which meant we had better results at the end of the shooting schedule. We have however come into a problem with the Macbook because of the better quality camera using AVI files which Premiere Pro wasn't connecting with. Eventually, I found out that we would need to convert the files to MOV files which we needed Quicktime Pro to complete. We found it very frustrating because the Macbook we collected from school didn't have Quicktime Pro to convert the files. Finally, after finding a macbook which did have Quicktime Pro, we converted the files and were able to start editing. Stephanie and I found that our project would of run a lot smoother if we had had this extra week editing instead of waiting to collect another mac but it couldn't of been helped as we didn't expect this to of happened.
Overall, the shooting went well and the end result was much better than our first shots. We were very pleased with the filming as the quality and continuity was much improved in comparison to the first set of shots.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire we asked people so that we could get some feedback from our likely audience and so that we could make any improvements from the feedback we were given. 


What is your favourite horror/thriller film?

The Silence of the Lambs - 4
The Exorcist - 5
Alien - 3
Paranormal Activity - 1
The Grudge - 3
Other - 4

Do you prefer films with an 15 or 18 rating?

75% of the people prefered an 18 rating on a thriller/horror film.

What is your favourite thing about horror/thriller films?

The majority of people liked the suspense that the plots created and are more scared by a horror if it is subgenred with a thriller film.

What do you dislike about horror/thriller films?

Cliche plots and unrealistic blood and gore.

What kind of music would you expect to find in horror/thriller films?

Orchestral music which builds the suspense.


From the questionnaire, we have found out what the audience would be expecting from a thriller/horror film. This information has helped us think about what we are going to need to include our opening sequence so that the audience is interested and captivated by the thrill of the opening.

Props List

Here is a list of props we will need for the opening sequence to our horror/thriller film. 




- Box - hole cut out of back so arm can fit through
- Black material
- Plywood - painted black with hole cut out of middle 
- Toys - found typically in a child's playroom 
- A ring
- A shoe
- A black sack or bin bag
- A veil
- Fake blood

Name of Sequence

We have decided to name our film 'Cut Up Commitment' because we feel this will interest the audience and make them question what the film will be about. 
We produced the idea from the fact that the little girl (victim) has been cut up and placed around the murderers home so that the phrase 'cut up' is metaphorical for her state. The word 'commitment' also links to the wedding theme we have in the opening but still makes the audience question what the film could be portraying. 

Location

We have decided to have two locations. One which will have the child's playroom in it and her arm and another where it's a dining room location where a table is present so that we can put the 'child's head' on the table. 

This will be the playroom. We have decided this would be a good location because it is clear and will be easy to adapt into a playroom which will look effective and realistic. 

This will be the location where we shoot the scene with the child's head and leg. We have decided this would be a good location because the room can be easily adapted so that we can shoot using the wooden board so that it looks as if it is only the child's head placed on the table.

Animatic and Animatic Evaluation

Filming - 4/2/11

Our filming session went well but was much harder than we have anticipated. Stephanie and myself organised ourselves well but it took a lot longer than we though it would take to film everything which eventually took around 8 hours to film. Firstly, it took us a while to decide where to film in the room and which would be the best location to create a good setting. Eventually, we chose the far end of the room which had the best lighting so as it got darker, the filming would maintain the same quality. Choosing shot angles was also harder than we had orginially thought but we overcame this issue by filming using a variety of different shot angles and each angle repeatedly so we could pick the best shots to use in our final sequence.
If we need to do any reshoots, I feel we have learnt what Stephanie and myself need to organise before filming. I also think that we need to use a better camera so that the quality of our sequence. Now that we both know the locations of each shot and what different camera angles work best, reshooting will be a lot easier to complete.

Idea Development and Changes

We have decided, as a group, to change our idea. This is because we felt our idea was too cliche and wasn't unique enough for us to develop without getting caught into films that have already been produced. Now, we have decided that the plot will be about a man getting a little girl ready for their wedding day. The little girl will have all her body parts. ie. head, legs and arms in different locations around the playroom we are going to shoot in. 
We have chosen this idea because it is unique and still fits into the horror/thriller genre of film. Stephanie and myself have put the idea into a storyboard which we feel is unique and easy to develop into the opening sequence. 

Research - Make-up

To make our film sequence, we researched a variety of different styles of how we can portray mise-en-scene and costume and make-up would be vital to create a good opening. From our research we found that blood and ripped, dirty clothing is common in these types of films which has helped us try and link mise-en-scene into our sequence. 
Websites such as http://horrorgenre.com/Special_Effects_Make-up_and_Animatronics/ and
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/02/19/makeup-secrets-of-movie-horror-pictures/ have shown that make-up is a key concept in the opening and we will have to try and link it into the sequence. 
Costume is also key because it will be vital to create a realistic environment to film. We were thinking of making our 'murderer' dress casually and the little girl in the sequence to wear a floral dress; this can continue to create a realistic feel as we want the sequence to look as effective as possible. 

Task Management

As a group, we sat down and discussed what roles we each would have to make the task run as quickly and smoothly as possible. 
This is our plan for research and planning :


Storyboard - Alexandra and Stephanie 
Location Research - Alexandra 
Make-up/Costume Research - Stephanie
Lighting Research - Sareena


We have also decided we would like to start filming before the end of the year so that we can be in line with tasks and try and create a filming schedule which will get the task done as soon as possible. We have aimed to try and complete all the filming by the beginning of february so that we have plenty of time to edit and in case we need to reshoot or re-edit anything. Our storyboard is the next thing we will need to discuss and plan so that our group can carry on with their tasks as normal and try to stick to our plan. 
My role of location research is to look into cliche locations that horror thriller films use and try to come up with a suitable location to base our opening film sequence on. I am finding this a challenge because I keep falling into cliche location places which are not unique. I will have to research into more obscure films to think of a more unique idea to locate our filming in. 

Our idea

We are going to go with the horror thrillier genre of film; we decided that we would go with this as we can fit the typical thriller conventions but also put in elements of horror so that we can add gore into the opening to make it seem scary as well as thrilling.

Our idea is to start with a typical opening of a thrillier with pictures of a girl all over a wall - we decided that we would go with this as the starting frame as it is expected of a thrillier to have a stalker/a phyco kind of character.
We then decided that to fit in with the horror genre the majority of our opening will go to a girl lying dead on the floor simply showing different parts of her body this will keep the opening ery and will leave the audience wanting to know what happened to her. Even though there will not be more to the film it will be a good opening and will leave the audience geussing and also by keeping an opening like this we wont have to have much of a story line which I believe works best within a thriller opening because it leaves room for anticipation and suspence.

We have decided on the setting of our opening: we are going to use a kitchen as the setting for our opening, by using a setting like a kitchen it will hopefully add a little to the suspence as a kitchen is not somehwere were you usally expect murder to take place. We have also decided on the gender of the murder and the victim, we have decided to stick to the original style of have the male as the stronger character whilst the female is the weaker character. We decided on have this as we believe that this will fit the conventions of both a thriller and a horror. We may however change the idea about gender and the way in which we represent the characters depending on how we wish to portry them.