Nassir Gulamad and Billy Edwards final evaluation video analysis

Recorded evaluation Questions 1,2,5,6&9

This is the evaluation of shamaan and milla covering question 1 2 5 6 and 9. We have basically looked through our blog and explained everything we have done and talked through our evaluation.

Equipment List and Location Options

This is the plan that we had for our shoots. We had on a location and the use of make-up and equipment that we wanted to use. 

Step Outline-Sound

This is the outline of the sound ideas that we had.  We wanted the sound to be obviously scary but also subtle. We had alot of ideas for the sound and in the end it turned out well, and in sync with our film. 

(Shamaan) Question 9 what was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?

In the planning i did:                                                             

This our shot of our previous character being possessed. 

This was a shot of the ring where the young girl was possessed 

Although we didn't end up using this sort of make up it gave us experience and ideas of what sort of make up and costume we could use.

All of the group members did the individual textual analysis grid, mind maps, and research into different genres of horror films. 

 

During the editing Me and Milla worked on a lot of the planning sheet, story boards and initial ideas and narratives. 

During the Production I did :

This shot was one of the shots that I did. Although Billy was responsible for a lot of the filming   I directed the actress  throughout and told her what to do. I also gave a lot of ideas for the different types of shots and frames and tried to make sure that we stuck to the planning and storyboard.

During the post production I contributed to the editing and the and voices to add to the music in our film. Me and Billy did a lot of the editing, made sure that our film had continuity and also made sure that the shots were framed properly and if not edited it so that it looked right. 

Post production I did: 

I made sure that things that we did were uploaded on the blog and that I also got people to fill out the evaluation forms and give us their critical and positive opinions about our films. Over all I think that we all worked really well together as a team and got all the tasks done equally. 

9.(Billy Edwards) What was your contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?

Planning

• During the planning stages we collectivly produced our planning folder. I was responsible for contributions to the horrorscript, producing the storyboard, titles design sheet and 20 second titles, 3 way lighting shots, textual analysis grid and also scanned a majority of this sheets into the computers and then uploaded them to the blog.

Production

• I played a vital role in the filming stages of the production, I was continually the one controlling the camera and setting up the framing. I enjoyed this stage of the production although it was difficult to find times where we were available to work together in the week I feel we produced good shots with effective angles and shot types. Here is an example of some of the shots I produced.

 

• When editing I played a pivotal role in cutting,cropping and adding effects and subtitles to the movie. Much of the editing was done under pressure of deadlines, if i were to do this again I would definitely organize and allocate time more efficiently in order to spend longer editing.I thought IMovie provided a good platform for us to piece together our original filming shots with many different functions that allowed me to create effective visual effects.

• After editing in IMovie I produced the soundtrack using some of the preset instruments in Garage Band and also from sounds we had recorded through a microphone. I feel this successfully creates suspense in the horror film.In order to improve this I would introduce a wider variety of sounds.

Evaluation

• In our post production stage I was responsible for completing question 7. I have thoroughly enjoyed working through this coursework piece and I feel it has challenged me. If I were to make any changes to our film it would be to have a re-shoot our first library scene and reduce the amount of time the character takes to walk to her chair as i feel this becomes tedious and repetitive. Below is a link to our final production.

 Final Production- http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7791261130607922821&postID=798107144829163752 

6. (Camilla Smith) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

   Here are a few examples of the British Horror Film production companies which have similar qualities to our film, for instance Film 4 Productions, Tigon British film Productions, Tyburn Film Productions and Benmar Productions. These companies have all created a horror and thriller film which links to our horror film as they haave used simliar techniques. Film 4 Productions produced the film 'Hush' and below is a picture that shows how our film has similar ideas:

Here the victim is a blonde female making her a stereotypical character as the audience believe that the female gender is weaker than the male.



Here we make the girl appear as the victim by the use of camera angles, such as in this shot we used a high angle shot to make the girl appear weak and vulnerable. This makes the audience aware that she is the victim throughout our film. 

• These production companies would help with the creation of the film which involves drawing the storyboard, researching our target group and the genre of film (psychological) and with the filming. If our group chose to work with a famous production company then it would help us advertise our product as they have already achieved a wide audience. They may want to use our ideas in order to make money from the final film.   





•  When producing any British film they have to go through certain stages in order to create the final movie. Our group had to work through similar stages to be able to create a typical psychological horror film. For instance they would have to research their chosen genre by watching a variety of films from this category in order to discover what features creates their typical genre. We watched the films Strangers, Vacancy and Silent Hill this helped us be aware of what is required for our film, the pictures below reveal how we tried to use similar techniques:

This photo shows that the threat has supernatural qualities as it appears abnormal throughout the film by not revealing any true facial expression or identity.

Throughout our film we keep the identity of the threat hidden but we revealed that the girl is the victim by use of camera shots. In the photo above the girl is looking for a book which was grabbed quickly out of her grasp, however now the book has disappeared. This makes the audience see that the threat has supernatural qualities as it has quick disturbing movements.

We discovered from our target research that men aged 18-29 mainly enjoyed watching psychological horror films, this helped us during the creation of the film as we had to include certain features that would attract to a male around this age range.

Before the filming can begin it is important that a story board is created as it helps the director of the film picture what shots are required, this helps save time during filming which then helps save money. We have drawn a storyboard which shows our original ideas however we realised when filming that other shots would be more effective.



Here in the 8th shot we thought we would use a 360 degree track around the girl to make her appear trapped however we thought that we could still us the track but by following  her through the bookcase in order to build tension as the audience are aware she is being watched.

When companies want to distribute their they have to think of ways to how they can attract their target audience for instance the title, plot and characters of their film. We decided to call our film 'Between The Lines' as throughout the film the girl is trapped between the book and the other supernatural threat creating an air of mystery for the audience. The characters are important as the audience has to be able to connect with them in order to follow their journey which is why we chose to use a young female character as then she appears more vulnerable and naive.

When companies want to distribute their they have to think of ways to how they can attract their target audience for instance the title, plot and characters of their film. We decided to call our film 'Between The Lines' as throughout the film the girl is trapped between the book and the other supernatural threat creating an air of mystery for the audience. The characters are important as the audience has to be able to connect with them in order to follow their journey which is why we chose to use a young female character as then she appears more vulnerable and naive. It is important that the film has been shown to the target audience in order to get general feedback. For instance 'Paranormal Activity' showed a screening of their film and recorded the audiences reaction so that they are able to see the positives and negatives about their film:

 For our film we asked men between the age range of 18-29 to fill in a questionnaire after watching the film to discover the good and bad qualities of the film and what needed to be altered.

9. What was your contributionn to the process during the planning, production and post production stages?

     For the planning I created part of the storyboard and helped write the script for the library scene. Also I reseached our genre by watching psychological horror films, e.g 'Vacancy', and came up with ideas for our final film such as it should be located in a library, I was able to find and organise our filming at Arnold Library. I created the shot list and identified the changes made from the final film and I created the powerpoint which we showed for our Pitch. As well I helped with the Make Up Design Sheet and participated in the 3 way lighting test shots. For the production I helped record sounds needed for the final film and participated in some of the editing of the film, I only took a minor part in the filming however I was creative by trying to create new ideas for the shots. Also I did have a small part in the film.

(shamaan) No.5: How did you attract/address your target audience?

Overall I think my group targeted our audience well. We tried to find a character that was young and attractive, yet not to stereotypically vulnerable and 'bimbo" like.

In this clip from scream we can see that both females are attractive vulnerable teenagers that are stereotypically hopeless

we tried to challenge the conventions and have her as a "nerd" we did this through the use of costume; blazer, glasses, scarf and bag and also through the use of props e.g. books.

Although we tried to challenge these conventions, our character remains vulnerable and obviously female so that is isn't to far fetched and our target audience aren't out of their comfort zone. 

The use of music in our film is very conventional. Its eerie and spooky and the use of non diegtic sound makes the audience very aware that something is about to happen in the film, which builds up great suspense. 

as you can see in this clip the use of contrast between non digetic and digetic sound adds a great feeling to the film as you are aware of what is going through the characters mind (when they are screaming or when the car screeches) and the audience is also aware that something bad is going to happen with the non digetic sound building up tension.

in the first 36 seconds of our film you can hear the contrast of what is going on in the characters head and what the character cant hear. we did this to  follow the conventions. even though music in horror films are often ignored and not thought about if it wasn't there then the audience would be confused and feel like their is something missing. therefore we included this sort of music so it would appeal to our target audience. 

This was our first audience feedback form and after this me and my group made changes. 

After this first evaluation my group was happy that we had met out target audience. He said that the shots were all well framed and provided enough head room and this was something we happened to be struggling with. He also said that is conforms to the conventions of a psychological horror film as we have close ups and he thought that the props and costume was convincing and added to the effect of the genre. He also said that he enjoyed the sound and thought it collaborated well with the natural sounds in the film. Some of the critical feed back that he gave was more of a range of shots i.e long shots and high angle shots etc. In our final shooting we looked at this evaluation and included some extreme high angle shots, shot reverse shots long shots etc. So overall this feedback worked really well and helped us improve our film.

This is the final evaluation that we have. Overall my group was happy with this evaluation.

In this final evaluation we were happy as all the critical things that were said in the first piece had been improved and our in our second evaluation most of the feedback was positive. The main negative feedback that the second evaluation said was that he found the fact that the start is non linear confusing. Although my group and I took this into account, as planning we watched a number of psychological horror and most of the ones we watched were non linear.

Overall my group and I were satisfied that we had managed to reach our target audience as both evaluations said that they would watch the rest of the film as they enjoyed it. 

(Shamaan) No.3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our horror film is certificate 18 Target Audience: Males Aged 18-29 - Or females over the age of 21 There is a no constraints on the level of language nudity or horror.

	Votes	Average
Males	27,710	6.0
Females	5,313	6.3
Aged under 18	523	7.0
Males under 18	394	7.1
Females under 18	128	6.5
Aged 18-29	21,534	6.2
Males Aged 18-29	17,732	6.2
Females Aged 18-29	3,738	6.4
Aged 30-44	9,370	5.9
Males Aged 30-44	8,167	5.8
Females Aged 30-44	1,150	6.1
Aged 45+	1,539	5.6
Males Aged 45+	1,268	5.6
Females Aged 45+	251	5.8
IMDb staff	6	7.3
Top 1000 voters	375	5.7
US users	13,524	6.2
Non-US users	17,370	5.9
IMDb users	36,587	6.0

Votes	Percentage	Rating
3,942	10.8%	10
2,417	6.6%	9
4,929	13.5%	8
6,947	19.0%	7
6,082	16.6%	6
4,182	11.4%	5
2,660	7.3%	4
1,808	4.9%	3
1,310	3.6%	2
2,310	6.3%	1

The target audience for a psychological horror film is males age 18-29 and Females ages 21+ this may have something to do with the fact that the typical characters in a psychological horror film is young vulnerable females which obviously entices young males to want the watch this genre of film. Maybe the  challenging conventions of a psychological horror film (the fact that its not all guts, blood and gore its more about working the brain) lures the more older men and females into wanting to watch something entertaining yet interesting.

Our main character is a young female which follows the conventions of a psychological horror and also hopefully  makes males want to watch the film due to her looks. However we also wanted to challenge the conventions slightly by having the female (Lexi) playing a ""nerdy", "geeky" young female which then hopefully makes it more interesting and unusual when she gets possessed.

My group all decided that the wanted to do a psychological horror film because its not cheesy or predictable. We all agreed that doing a film in this genre would give us more options on location, characters costume and narrative. Whereas doing a slasher or zombie film limits the amount of choices to have to be original. 

We used the information that we researched to help us with the narrative. If we had an old man playing the main part then we probably wouldn't interest our target audiences.