Preliminary Task Compared to Film Opening

Here is the completed film opening:


This is the preliminary task

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

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this project?

Make full screen when viewing.

Question 5

Question 4

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


From previous planning for our opening, we chose a 12A certificate. We agreed on this because our target audience is for teenagers however we want as many people as possible to watch it so we had to choose a low age rating. A 12A rating was attainable because our film didn't contain anything too graphic to force it to have a higher rating. Although it does show some violence it is nowhere near enough to boost it to a 15. Based on a survey we found that the largest audience willing to pay to go and watch a horror film in the cinema is between 13 and 18 so this helped us to chose what our main target audience will be.

To make sure that our film is successful to our target audience we had to have our main character to have the personality of a stereotypical teenage boy. This is to make sure that our main character connects with most of the people watching and, therefore, can relate to the film. Our second media convention was that we had our film is that we set the film in an abandoned farm house. This also helps the target audience relate to the characters and their situation as teenagers are often seen as hanging out away from society and getting up to no good. Also after collecting more information from a survey, we gathered that more boys than girls would go to watch therefore our characters were male to get maximum connection between our audience and our film.

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

Question 1 and 2

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Construction: Success Re-Filming

After we re-filmed we did another rough edit and here is how it turned out:

We decided to put together a rough edit putting together our clips to give us a rough idea of how our movie opening will turn out.

The biggest problem with our initial filming was the dialogue throughout because you could not hear the actors without there being wind or background noise such as cars which do not help with the idea of the location being secluded.

We made sure to check our camera before we started this time to ensure that the camera lens did not have any dirt on it as last time we did not check until we had already done some of the shots.

This rough edit, I would say, is much better than the initial filming because it has absolutely no dialogue which means we can put some non-diegetic sound over the top to give the opening a better feel overall. We tried to also add more camera shots, angles and movements throughout the opening.

This time we really excelled in representing the stereotype of a teenager through the use of him playing on a game console at the start, the can of energy drink and overall a great representation of a  stereotypical teenager.

We found that instead of actually seeing the killer we went for a storyline where you don't see the killer at all other than their hand, this gives a feeling of uncertainty and really makes the audience wonder who the killer is and what he looks like.

Now that we are happy with our rough edit we will continue to cut it down to as good as possible with the clips, adding in sound and also titles over the top.

Planning: New Storyboard

Here is the first 10 storyboard for our new movie opening.

Planning: Shot list for our filming.

Research: conjuring opening titles

Here is the opening credits for conjuring and i am exploring the idea that was used in the opening credit

Construction: filming

These pictures show where we filmed and how we filmed it. This first image shows how we set up the shot of Lewis helping Stephen through the door to the next scene. We felt this was a good angle because it made it clear to the audience what was happening.

During this we were helping Tom find a place to stand which was relevant to our shot. We had to make it so you can only partially see him so he still keeps a sense of anonymity. This was important for us because we felt that the killer's identity shouldn't be given away in the first couple of minutes of the film.

This image is when we were trying to get a sort of birds-eye-view shot facing down on Lewis and Stephen. We chose this shot to make it look as if both characters were in danger.

Construction: Problems With Initial Filming

After filming our opening of a horror movie we put together a rough edit:



Once we finished filming for the first time and we looked at our rough edit we realised that there was a lot wrong with it and that we could improve it massively.

Our biggest problem is the sound; in this plan we relied on diegetic sound (Lewis and Stephen) throughout and this is a huge problem because of the background noise and the wind causing the sound to be very bad; it was hard to hear them at points in the film and didn't build the tension we were looking for.

Another problem that we came across was that some of the clips had dirt on the camera meaning the shot didn't look clear or good meaning that all of these clips need to be re-filmed.

We have decided to completely change our storyline quite a lot and during the next filming we are going to make sure that we include a lot more camera shots, camera angles and camera movements throughout and also make sure that we remove all of the diegetic sound because it is too difficult to do that without the background noise and wind making the quality very bad, we are also going to include music to create the tension that we are looking for.

Planning: Equipment

The first piece of equipment that we need for our film is a phone. This is for the scene in the woods when Lewis checks for signal after Stephen gets injured. This shows the audience that they are in a stressful situation in a secluded setting. 

The second piece of equipment is a camera. This will allow us to shoot our movie. In the simplest way possible. 



The third piece of equipment is a tripod. This will help us perform a controlled shot without the camera moving about when we don't want it to. 



The last piece of equipment is a baseball bat. This is going to be used as the murderers weapon. He needs to weapon to show he is the most powerful character. 

Planning: Storyboard

The next thing we had to do was create a storyboard showing each shot and movement in our film opening. When we start filming we will refer back to the storyboard to make sure that we are following our plan so it looks exactly how we want it to look. Creating a storyboard shows us a rough idea what our storyboard will look like before we even start filming. This is vital so we don't run into many problems when it comes to filming. 

Planning: Shot List

This is our shot list that helps to show you what type of shot that we are filming once the camera has cut to a different angle. We were able to break down all the different scenes into different shots as we new how and when we needed a different shot and scene. We also added a brief description so we knew what was happening in that particular shot. This is all so we know what we are doing in our 2 minute opening.

Planning: Filming Schedule

Our group have decided that our filming should be taking time at a certain time of the day where we will have the perfect lighting for our filming to be successful. 

We have also made a plan and estimate when or what date  we are going to film which is going to be a day that everyone is definitely going to be available.

we are filming in the february half term which means we have all the time that we need to plan it and make decision to benefit the filming.

Planning: Location

This is the location that we will be using as a group to film in. It looks like a location that is isolated and that would be good for the filming. It is a good location because we need an abandoned location to be able to film this filming properly.

This is what the location actually looks like. This isn't actually an abandoned location as you can clearly see something is being built. When you zoom into the building it makes it look like a secluded location. This is what we need for our filming.

Here is the next place, it is a good place to film because we could make it look like a secluded location for filming giving the audience the sense of no one around to help.

However its not a good option because you would hear cars going past throughout filming as there is a main road, this would probably be the perfect location if the main road was not nearby.  With the cars going past during clips of the film it would be bad because the audience would realise that actually this is not a secluded location meaning they wouldn't get the same fear as if they thought it was secluded and no one around to help.

Next place, like the others, looks very good as a location for our film opening with a feeling of a secluded location with a lot of trees around for the audience to imagine the killer hiding.

For this location there is however a lot of houses nearby meaning in the background of the shots you could maybe hear people or lawnmowers etc, making this a bad location overall.

Overall, the best location would be the first location as we can make it feel like a secluded location and it is also far enough away from the road so that you can not hear cars going past during the shots, giving it the feeling of it being secluded and there is no help around for the victims.

Coursework: What is your plan?

This is the plan that we have for the rest of our school year. This gives us the ability to plan on when we are going to do our filming which we have decided that it will be in the February half term.

Planning: Casting

This is Lewis Swannell. Lewis would be a very appropriate choice for staring in our film. He is a confident and loud person which would be very good for our film. He is also available for our filming schedule so he is a very strong candidate to get the part.

This is Kofi Amponsah. Kofi is free during out filming schedule however his downfall is that he is very shy and awkward around people and in front of the camera especially and this would not be very good for our film because he would not translate well with the audience.

This is Tom Kelly. Tom is a very strong candidate for one of the starring roles. He is loud and confident which are the characteristics we are looking for in the star for our film. He is also available during our filming schedule so he is the ideal candidate overall.

This is Matthew Hope. Matthew is a very loud and confident person who would translate well with our audience and he would be a great candidate for the role. The problem is that he is not available during our filming schedule.

This is Stephen Olatunbosun. Stephen is very hard to work with however when he starts to do what he is asked to do he can do it well, he is very loud and confident therefore this would translate well with our audience. He is also available for all days of our filming schedule which makes him overall a great candidate.

Whilst we were trying to find the right cast for our film we looked at a range of different things that would be good for our characters to have. Some of the things we looked at were; character confidence, personality, characteristics and of course if they were available on the filming schedule. Not all of the people above had the right attributes to be given the part in our film but some of them did and the cast we have gone with is the following: Tom Kelly (as the main killer, probably not seen much during the film), Lewis Swannell (One of the two main characters) and Stephen Olatunbosun (The other main character).