Individual evaluation 7

Throughout the process of constructing this product we have learnt more about camera angles and how the type of shots do matter to the film and the rules that we have to stick by to create a film, if we didn't stick by these then we would find that our film wopuld have looked terrible as in our preliminary task we didn't stick to the 180 degree rule that much but we have learnt from that mistake. 


We incorporated more camera shots like close up and panning, if we didn't incorporate these different angles and shots then i think our film wouldn't look as good as it does and it wouldn't entice the audience and it wouldnt catch their attention that much. 

 This is me using the camera that we used to film our film opening.

 This is me using the MacBook Pro to edit the film as you can see in this image. 

We have learnt more about how to edit the film using a MacBook Pro and how to add on more writing over the filming of the action and how to colour the scenes to make it like it was darker and creepy. 


We also learnt a lot about how to download the clips to the MacBook Pro and because the software for editing the film is an advanced program that the professional people use we had to learn how to use it. It is completely different to the windows program. 


I have learnt how to use the program iMovie which is what we used to edit the film and how to put the film opening when it was finished onto a disk.  

Individual evaluation 6

When i look back to my preliminary task i started off with not having a clue of how to use a MacBook Pro and how to use the software and programs like iMovie, i also didn't know that much about how to hold the cameras as i was a bit shaky and about the camera angles and types like the 180 degree rule and match-on-action. 


I feel like since we finished our preliminary task we learnt a bit about all of the software and how the process would be to make a film but after we have finished our main task i feel like we have learnt a lot more on how to use everything properly to create a successful film opening. I also have learnt a lot about how important my audience is to be able to produce the film in the first place and how important researching the different techniques and styles and genres of film and how hard or easy they would be to create. 


I also feel like we have become more organised and we have worked even better as a group as we are all comfortable with working with each other and we enjoy working together. I think we have achieved a successful media product and we have gotten the desired product that we wanted and i am happy with it.

 This is a close up shot of our film opening we didn't use any close up shots in our preliminary task as we were not that advanced with our techniques.

 This is a match on action shot were I am walking into the closed off area where the zombie is. We did use this type of shot in our preliminary task but we improved on how we could film this type of shot. 

 This is the match on action shot of our preliminary task it is not as good as the shot from our film opening because we weren't as advanced as we are now.

 This is a mid shot of when i was changing the song on my iPod. we didn't use this type of shot in our preliminary task as again we weren't as advanced with the range of different types of camera shots.

 Here you can see a shot-reverse-shot from our preliminary task, we didn't need to use this type of shot in our film opening because there was no dialogue in our film opening so we didn't feel like we needed to use this type of camera shot.

Individual evaluation 5

We attracted our target audience by using a male and female actors to attract the opposite sex as we found that in our questionnaire the results showed that if we had a male and female actor then we would have both genders wanting to watch the film and this would then give us a bigger audience and it would stray away from the stereotypical views of who should and shouldn't watch a 'horror/thriller' film. 


We also attracted our audience by using the conventions that we said we were going to use like different camera angles as it shows in our audience feedback questionnaire that one response said they liked the camera angles and the different type of shots that we used like using the 180 degree rule so it didn't confuse the audience as to where the girl was, if we hadn't stuck to that rule then the camera shots would be all over the place and then the audience would have gotten confused and thought that it was a terrible film, also it shows they were attracted to the film by the type of action that happened in the film. 

Here is a link to our annotated film 'Prohibited' 

Individual evaluation 3

I think that an independent company would distribute our media product like ZaLahta Films, they are a small company that started broadcasting in 2004, they are still a small company with a lot of 'drive' and 'ambition' rather than focusing all of their focuses on money. The producers of the company are not that well known and i think if we were going to try and distribute our film then we would have to go to someone who isnt that big in the media industry like 'ZaLahta Films' and get them to watch it then they would consider the film and either produce it or not considering if they liked it or not and if it was good.

 A company like Disney wouldn't distribute our film because they are more child friendly and our genre of film isn't what small children would want to see also becasue our names are not well known in the media industry. I dont think Disney would want to put their name on our film as we are an Independence group and the film that we have produced they would have to make it child friendly and then the film wouldn't be what we wanted. We would also have to buy a licence from Disney to produce our film in their name.


Here is our directors commentary:

We called our production company “BRYF Productions” because we used this name in the preliminary task and we decided we wanted to keep it we stayed in the same group.

• A production company provides the fundraising for making the film like partnering with another company like Pixar partnered with Disney.

• A film distributer would release the film to the public through the cinema or DVD’s or Blue Ray. They do this directly if they own the film distribution networks or by the other sub-distributers.

• The money for producing our film came from borrowing money from the school which if we were to produce our film we would make money and make a profit so we would pay them back

• We decided to put all the names and titles in this order because we thought that it would better suit in the way it was so that you see the production company first and then the actors who star in it.

• We decided on the colour of the footage because we wanted to create a creepy effect on the film without doing too many special effects.

• We used a song from YouTube called scary music to add a different dimension to the opening. It was creepy and made the footage look so realistic and true to real life media.

• The Title was done in blood Red font to make audiences see that there is blood and gore ahead in the rest of the film to keep them entertained. It is a hidden part which makes audiences thinks that it is scarier than other horror/thriller films.

Individual evaluation 4

Our audience for this film would be for teenagers and adults that like the genres 'horror/thriller'. Also our target audience is males mor ethan females because we noticed that males generally like horror/thriller films than females as it shows in the graph. Males tend to like horrors more as they are gory and scary and stereotypically girls are scared of this and they don't like it because there is lots of fast paced scenes that build up adrenalin and scare them a lot.

We have decided to stray away form the stereotypical views of how females are when they watch horror/thriller films so we showed it to females and males so we get as many people as possible to want to view our film. However if we were big well known film producers then we would have to research more into our target audience so it would sell to as many people as possible so we could make a profit and we would achieve our target audiences needs and wants.

We drew a picture of what we think our target audience would look like. We drew a female because most of the participants form our questionnaire was female. She would be about the age of 16, we didn't draw in her face because we don't know what she would look like with her facial features. 

Our stereotypical target audience member would be a female teenager who shops at new look and republic who would listen to rock/punk music who their favourite tv programm would be something gory and creepy with zombies in like 'The Walking Dead' and 'Death Valley' 

 Also their favourite films would be films like 'Zombieland' or 'The Crazies' these two are typical teenage films which our target audience would like to watch because there is gore, blood, it is comical in places, and it scares you.  

Individual evaluation 2

I feel that our media product represents and meets the social group of teenagers as it is a horror/thriller film which attracts teenagers more than any other type of social group, because they would understand what would be going on and it will give them either a buzz, scare them or creep them out as it is the type of genre. Also by having the actors the same age as teenagers it would relate more to them as it would be in their age range.
We put the '3 weeks later...' bit at the end so that people would want to know what was goingt to happen in the rest of the film and so it would engage the audience and would attract a wider range of people. This is aimed more towards teenagers who have an interest in 'horror/thriller' films. It is also attracted by people who want to see what it is about as the name is catchy and it will stand out more to the audience.

On the left is Reece as a zombie/killer we made the film dark and merky so it made it seem more creepy and on the right is a zombie from the film 'Zombieland' the colour is more bright and colourful to show how red the blood is on his face.
For our film we decided to not have blood dripping from every were because we didn't have the right equipment and also we wanted to show how the start of the transition to becoming a zombie was like. 
Whereas on the 'Zombieland' zombie you can clearly see that he is a zombie with all the blood dripping from him on his face and his hands. 


The way Reece dressed as a zombie didn't make it seem like he was a zombie more like a stalker/killer; he was dressed in all dark colours to blend in with the trees and the background and also to make it so that he looks scary and creepy. 
However, on the 'Zombieland' zombie he is wearing bright and colourful clothes to show that he was once a normal person probably on holiday and now he is a scary zombie monster.  This zombie contrasts to our zombie because this zombie is in full stage of being a monster as you can see by all off the blood around his face.


Reece looks as if he is neat and clean whereas the other zombie doesn't care and looks like a complete mess, this shows that Reece is not in the stage of being a mental, crazed zombie and he still hasn't eaten anyone yet or he still has a little bit of his mind left, the other zombie doesn't have any control over what he is doing and he obviously has been eating other people as you can see by the amount of blood that is on him.


Reece's role in the film was to be the main zombie/killer so you would see him throughout the whole film killing people and making more people turn into zombies until the whole world was infected. You don't know this until after the opening but as we were just filming an opening we didn't get to show this.
But in 'Zombieland' this zombie only appears once in the film as a random zombie to show that there is an outbreak of zombies running around, his part is a minor one whereas Reece's part was a bit one as he is one of the main characters. 


Both of these zombies have many differences but only a few similarities like they are both supposed to be zombies and they are both running after someone and both want the same thing 'to feed on flesh'. 

Individual evaluation 1

In our media task I think we have successfully created a film opening that is watchable and fits the genre of what we chose 'thriller/horror', also we have managed to keep our film opening aimed at our target audience. It was a long process but we managed to learn and get better along the journey of creating and developing our film opening. 

This is our own title sequence of our film opening 'Prohibited'.

Our conventions that we were hoping to achieve in our film opening were, having the whole film looking dark and creepy, also to have a bold colour of writing for the title of our film opening and a wide range of camera angles and shots.

I think our media product uses some of the forms and conventions of our film deconstructions 'Zombieland' and 'Hostage' because we had the idea of filming the action then having the opening credits over the top like we had in the beginning this is from the film 'hostage' we felt like this would make it so the audience was captured by what was going on and it would make them want to know what was going to happen next. 


We also had the coloured red font from 'Zombieland'. We did this so the writing would stick in our audiences mind and so they will remember the title of our film also we had it in blood red so it linked to the type of film that we were doing. 


I think we achieved some of the camera angles and types of shots that we saw in these deconstructions and they made our film opening much better than having one type of shot.  I think it didn't achieve the conventions and forms of our third deconstruction 'The Mummy' because we didn't use any hand-drawn elements in our film and also they didn't merge into each other as the credits went past, we felt like this wouldn't give the same effect of what we were going for so we decided against it.


I feel like our media product has achieved our conventions that we were aiming at as we have made it so the whole film and the area where the girl was walking her dog scary and creepy so it made the audience feel the emotions of 'fear' and so it made them feel sorry for the girl who was walking her dog as she was going to be killed. We also achieved our third convention as we added lots of different camera angles including: mid shots, match-on-action shots, close up shots, we used the 180 degree rule and wide shots and we used panning with a hand-held camera to make the film look more creepy.

Audience feedback.

For the audience feedback of our film we made a questionnaire which we gave out to people who had watched it here is the questionnaire...

Audience feedback questionnaire

and here are the results...


We asked 6 people to fill in our questionnaire.
For the first question we asked what is your age?
- Four people said they were between 15-17 one person said they were 18-21 and another person said they were 27-30 this shows that over 15 year olds would want to watch our film and that we were right in making our target audience as teenagers and up.


For the second question we asked 'How much money do you earn annually?'
- Most people said below £12000 because they are school students and they don't earn much at the moment but the older people we asked made more money as they were in professional high paying jobs earing £25000 and above annually. We asked this question to see what type of people would want to watch this film like higher, middle or working class most people we asked were average working class.


For the third question we asked 'Are you male or female?'
-  Most of the respondents were female, this is because we asked more female people in the school instead of males we tried to ask males but they wouldn't answer the questionnaire or they put silly answers. 


For the fourth question we asked 'what is your occupation?'
- Most people answered with school student because we were at school when we gave out the questionnaires. Other people said 'A teacher of English' and 'shop floor assistant' and catering assistant'. This tells us that the people who watched our film opening were mainly teenagers without a job but some did have a job. This is showing that we achieved our target market.


For the fifth question we asked 'What was your favorite part of the film and why?'
- The answers were 'the camera shots and angles earlier on' 'when fay tripped over, was entertaining' 'when fay got attacked, it was cool' and 'when the dog ran off'. These points are what the teenagers thought about the film and the 'camera shots and angles' point was made by the teacher. This shows that the teenagers think that the action in the film was good and the teacher thought more about the making of the film.


For the sixth question we asked 'what didn't you like about our film opening? why?'
- People answered this question with 'maybe more stuff needs to happen earlier on' 'The title has no relation to the film opening' and 'wasn't moody enough, i didn't anticipate it'. These answered were their own opinions and we took in consideration of these points and if we filmed this again we would include these points. We would make the opening a little longer and have more tension to build up the audiences fear and we would show that the area was prohibited and i wasn't aloud to go there. 


For the seventh question we asked 'What suggestions would you give us to improve it?'
- The answers given were 'Change the title of the film' 'Make the killing scene more gory' ' add more violence to the film' and 'make it a little shorter' If we did this again then we would consider these points. We wanted to make the killing scene more gory but we didn't have the right equipment to do it as we didn't have the blood or the things to make it look horrible. We also would change the name as it doesn't really fit in with the actual film and it seems a bit odd calling that but from the opening you wouldn't know that the area that the girl walked through was forbidden and prohibited and i wasn't allowed to go int there but if we filmed the rest of the film then the title would be come clearer.


For the eighth question we asked 'Would you want to watch the rest of the film?'
- All of the people we asked said that they would want to watch the rest of the film. This shows that we have successfully achieved in making a 'thriller/horror' film and that we have achieved our target audience which was teenagers and above. 

Our film credits

Here is a list of our film ending credits. 


Starring - Fay Sawyn
               - Reece Taylor
               - Charley the Dog


Director - Bret Newman


Producers - Fay Sawyn
                   - Bret Newman
                   - Reece Taylor


Editor - Reece Taylor


Written By - Fay Sawyn


Camera - Reece Taylor 
               - Bret Newman
               - Fay Sawyn


Makeup & Costume - Fay Sawyn
                                    - Bret Newman


Created By - The Avenues Studios


All of these would normally go at the end of our film but we were only making a film opening so we couldn't put them onto the opening film or it wouldn't have been right. We wanted to credit ourselves for the work that we had put into this film opening. 

Editing the video!!

To edit our video we used the MacBook Pro with the apple software called iMovie, It is a simple and easy thing to use. We used the MacBook Pro so that we could edit our film like a professional would. 

This is a screen shot of the program that we used.

When we were editing the film it was quite a quick process that lasted only 2 double lessons. We decided to have a 'Bleach bypass' effect over the top of the whole film to make it look more eerie and dark and like something wrong is going to happen and so the audience when they watch it feels scared. 

We used a track from youtube called 'scary music' we made sure it wasnt copyrighted and we also made sure that it was ok to use it in our film opening. We chose this music because it sounded creepy and it made the film opening more scary and gave the right atmosphere of her walking her dog alone and she doesn't know whats going to happen to her. 

We had to cut the shots down so they fit together right instead of the film being all jumpy, we had to cut off a few seconds off each of the clips and some of the clips we had to cut off a couple of seconds off of the front.

We added in a few black screens from where we faded the action into black to change to show who produced and directed the film opening and also to change the viewpoint of the camera from my feet walking along to Charley the dogs feet. We also added over the top of the action who stars in the film in white to make it stand out from the 'Bleach bypass' effect. We made the black screens and the white writing fade in and out after a few seconds.

We named our film 'Prohibited' which we show in the film opening right after I scream and the screen quickly changes to black, we made the writing blood red and in a different  font to the first font that we used, we did this to make it stand out from the rest of the writing font and colour so it stuck in your mind more.

The filming process

On Friday 20th of January we started to film out film opening. We had to sign out of the school in order to get Reece's dog 'Charley'. We went thought the back entrance of the school so we didn't have the dog walking through the school because we wasn't allowed as it said in the email that Bret sent to the head of business and finance.


We went down the back of the Science block in Sir Harry Smith School, we had to check with the science technicians just to make sure we was actually allowed to film down there. The filming was going alright until at one point we had the children from P.E running outside from the class changeover and making a bit of noise but we managed to re-film that scene and get all of the filming done in the double lesson that we had without many interruptions. 


Although Yasmin wasn't here to film i think it went quite well. We had to re-film some of the scenes because of school children talking and we also had to re-film some of the scenes that involved Charley because she sometimes didn't want to walk up and down the muddy path and she sometimes got distracted and started to follow one of us. We had to stop and restart the filming process which took a bit of time but it wasnt that bad..


We painted Reece's face with face paint which we got from the drama department. We put blue, red, and black paint around his eyes to make it look like he was cold, bleeding and the black to give emphasis around his eyes and the yellow on his cheeks to make it look like he was ill and dead. 


We filmed scenes using the 180 degree rule where I was walking Charley we did this becuase we didn't want the audience to see inside the classes near the Science block, match on action also where i am walking down the path with Charley we did this so the audience could get a better understanding of what was going on, a close up shot of when I screamed so the camera could fade to black quickly to show the title of the film dramatically, mid shots of when i stopped walking and turned when I heard a rustling and a two shot where I walked past Reece who was standing in the background. 


It was a quick process and we enjoyed filming it.

Our film opening.

Click on the link below to view our film opening:

Click here to view! :)

Our film is titled 'Prohibited' We felt this was a good name for our film because it is one word which will stick in your mind and will be easy to remember and it describes the area of where I was walking through and where Reece was staying, it was forbidden to people but I didn't know so I went in and got myself killed.

Changes we made.

Yasmin wasn't here when we were filming so we had to improvise and change the storyboard a bit, I took her place as the female character walking her dog and Reece got his dog 'Charlie' which we had trained as well as Tyler just in case we couldn't have Tyler on the schools property or if Yasmin wasn't here to film.


I had to take Yasmin's place as she wasn't here to film so I had to become the female character that is walking her dog and gets killed at the end. Some of the shots were terrible and I wasn't happy with the outcome of them so I decided with Bret and Reece to re-film them. 


We also shortened our film opening because we thought it would look better if we kept it all in one place and not jump to another scene, if we kept with the original idea then we would have had to film at the same time and hope that the weather would have been the same this would have been quite difficult because we cant change the weather. 


When we filmed it was raining so it was very muddy, this would have been hard to carry on in Coates as it might not have rained when we wanted to film again and the area wouldn't have the same foliage so that's why we didn't film in coates as well as in school.


Also at the end of the film we decided to have it so that the camera still panned into the screaming mouth but I was standing up and also after that happens we will fade to black then cut to action again with Reece as the zombie eating my neck and snarling at the camera, the screen will go black and say '3 weeks later...'. This shows how I died and I wont be continuing into the rest of the film and how the film will then move onto the actual main body of the film . 


We also decided to not have the music playing from my iPod where the audience could here it because we all realized that I didn't take my headphones out whilst we were filming so we couldn't have the effect where the music faded when i wasn't listening to it. 

Permission for filming with a dog.

We had to send an email to the head of business and finance to see if we were aloud Yasmin's dog onto the school property if we didn't have permission then we couldn't film with Yasmin's dog and we would have to change our idea for our film opening.


We all figured out what Bret was going to put before sending the email to them because we wanted to make sure they were persuaded into letting us bring Yasmin's dog. This is the email that Bret sent to them.

The principle sent a reply to the email that Bret sent four days after it was sent. It said that permission was granted for having Yasmin's dog on the school grounds but with some guidelines that we needed to follow:

'The dog is not aloud in the building', we will have to take the dog around the back of the school near the field and into the playground. 'It is kept under control', We will have to have the dog on his lead at all times but when the dog runs off in the film opening we will need someone at the other end of the area to catch him. 'You clear up anything it leaves behind', We will bring doggy bags if he decides to have a poo. 'The filming is restricted to those participating in the film and does not include other students to comply with our Safeguarding policy', We wont allow anyone else to handle the dog that won't be in our group for health and safety reasons. 

Below is a copy of the email.

This is the email that Bret sent back to them. He put that we will follow the rules that he has given us and saying thank you to him.

Film opening planning/scripting.

While Yasmin is walking her dog we were thinking of having the film playing with her iPod in her ears and when the camera gets close to her it will play the music out loud so everyone can hear it like the 'Misfits gear up scene' Which you can view from the link below.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO

We will have it differently to how 'Misfits' have done it so it will be our own interpretation of it as they had 'Kelly' 'Simon' and 'Nathan' all picking different songs to listen to, we will only be using one that will fit in with the film opening we were thinking about linking the song to what is happening in the action of the film opening. 


For our film opening we wont be needing a script because all we will say in the film is screaming and snarling. Yasmin will shout 'Tyler' and 'Help me' and this will be the only 'real' dialogue in the whole of the film opening. 

Coates locations

 This is a front view of the field that were we were planning of having Yasmin running to. It is set in Coates and will be perfect for our film opening as it is big and there is nothing in it also there is trees around the edges so it will fit in with the previous scene of Yasmin running through the trees.

 This is a birds eye view of the field as you can see it is very big and deserted, this will be good for our film opening because Yasmin will need to end up in a deserted place trying to figure out where her dog is. 

Group Storyboard

This is our storyboard that we have done. It is very simple and easy to follow. 


The first image is to set the scene of where our film is going to be filmed, also it shows who it is produced by and which effects that we are going to use for it. We will be having the camera fading in from black to showing the audience Yasmin's feet while she is walking. This will make the audience wonder where Yasmin is and who she is. The scene then quickly snaps to black where we will put writing that says 'Avenue Studios Presents' after this the scene will show Yasmin's dogs feet walking. This will give the audience more information on what the person they saw before is doing. Again it will flash to a black screen saying 'A BRYF Productions' then you will see a view of Yasmin's iPod which the camera will pan up to Yasmin's face so you can see the headphone in her ear which will be playing a song which the audience will hear. The camera will then show Yasmin's dogs face which will show the audience which type of dog she has and will reveal more about what type of character Yasmin is. The last scene on the first page is where you see Yasmin and her dog walk through a gate with a sign which is decayed but Yasmin doesn't see that is says 'DO NOT ENTER'. 

After Yasmin walks through the gate we will have a camera shot were we are looking straight at her front as she is walking her dog through the gate, this will show a match on action shot. We will have over the action the names of who is starring in the film: 'Yasmin Wadsworth', 'Reece Taylor', 'Bret Newman' and 'Fay Sawyn'. In the next scene we will have a shot of Yasmin walking with her dog and we will be showing the back of Reece's head showing that he is stalking Yasmin. While we will be filming Yasmin walking we will see Reece following her getting closer and closer each camera shot. Yasmin will then hear Reece over her iPod music and she will get worried which this will then make her walk faster and trip over and lose her dog, she will then shout out Tyler's name but he doesn't come back to her, she hears some more rustling and she turns to see a zombie (Reece) then starts to run. 


As you can see on the third image of the storyboard Reece will be chasing after Yasmin, she will be scared for her and her dog because she won't know where he is. She will run through a lot of trees and will appear in an empty field, she will look to find Tyler but he will be no were to be seen. Yasmin will turn around towards the trees where she had just came from and she will see three sets of eyes all staring hungrily at her. The three sets of eyes are Bret, Reece and myself, Yasmin will scream as we jump out of the trees and attack her. The final shot is where Yasmin is laying on the ground while Bret, Reece and myself are eating her, she will be screaming and this is when we will make the camera pan down into Yasmin's mouth then the screen will go black with the title of our film appearing. 


For the last scene we have put 'Title' because we haven't decided on a name for our film yet.