The Technology used.

As a group we decided we wanted to do an underwater shot for our opening two minutes, so we used the Kodak 600D, this allowed us to capture underwater clearly in HD keeping up with the other piece of equipment we used for shots that weren't done in water. This camera had auto focus which means it focused onto the hands of the protagonist in the shot, showing what she was doing and why, in this case she was washing blood off her hands. This was a great special effect that we used within our film as people are constantly amazed with how we filmed it and said it was one of the main best parts of our film as it created suspense with the diagetic sound that the movement of the water created and made a good effect on the audince.  The other camera we used was the Canon 600D, this machine allowed us to use manual focus which benefited us as it let us experiment and focus in on the most important thing in each shot. For example, the last shot of our opening two minutes; we begun the shot by focusing in on the girl but then changed it so the focus on the antagonist making him the main subject in that shot. 

To record our video diaries we decided to just used the iPhone 4s as it was easy to use because we have had much experience filming of it in the passed; it made creating a video diary an easy and fun thing to do.

To edit our clips and to put them together we used Adobe Premiere Elements, this gave us a good range of effects, transitions and fonts we could and did use to create our film. This software allowed us to crop our clips so they're very accurate which benefits us as we wanted to use a lot of match on action shot in our opening two minutes. We needed to be precise with our match on action shots so they would look and run smoothly which makes the film seem a lot more realistic and professional.

From using this software we have been able to learn many new techniques that we didn't already know to make our film, this will massively benefit next year as we are making a trailer for our final piece; learning how to use this software will make the editing process quicker.

To show the evidence of our work we posted it on this webpage - Blogger. Without this blog it would've made the entire year a lot harder as we wouldn't have anywhere to post our process. 

Using blogger let us post and edit our post as frequently as we wanted to, share video diaries and our final film from YouTube which meant we could keep all of our work in one place.

Directors Commentary

 

Me and the rest of my group decided to do a directors commentary for our opening two minutes. In this we commented on the use of shots, sounds, affects on the audience ect, we also explain how we would've funded our film, who would've distributed it and how we would market it.

Preliminary Task Vs Final Film

There is a major contrast between our preliminary task and our final film because at the beginning of the school year we didn't know much about different camera angles, match on action and the 180 degrees rule, so we attempted to use each of them in our preliminary task to get an idea on how and why they are used in films. As you can see from watching the two, we have a much better idea on what we are doing in our final film and how to do it so it makes the film run smoothly, for example when we used match on action in our preliminary task (pulling out the stool from under the desk) it almost seemed a bit clumsy and not very well done, this may be because we only attempted to film it once but in The Woods we did it again until we got it to look right such as the shot of the protagonist as she turns her head to see what made a noise. We might've been able to make these sequences stronger in our preliminary task if we spent more time editing each clip so it fits well; editing is another thing me and the rest of my group have massively improved on during the creation of our final piece. We learnt many things such as cropping the sequence to make it look right, adding in text that we had created before hand on Photoshop and also adding in effects to change the appearence of the clip. Although we didn't actually use any effects in any of our shots, learning this may benefit us next year when we create our own trailor. Something else we learnt to do while doing our preliminary task is the shot/reverse shot, you are able to see it when the two girls are talking to eachother but we didn't use this in our final piece as it didn't follow the conventions of a horror.

In our preliminary task we tried to use each shot type to experiment and give our selves experience for when we made the our final piece, I feel shot types are our strongest area, in our preliminary task we used close ups, low angle shots and over the shoulder shot, these different shot types are effective as it engages the audiece.

Overall I think me and my group have improved so much since first filming and editing our preliminary task which shows in our final piece. All of these things may improve even more next year when we do our next piece making it even stronger.

Evaluating Shots.

The location of this shot was in the actual woods, it was just after the innocent girl heard a twig brake, making the tension build as she turns quickly to try and see what made the noise. This shot is the second half of a match on action sequence and is only 2 seconds long. We decided on doing a close up for this clip as it shows the emotion of the character - shock and fear, we also chose to do a close up because it is the first time the audience get a chance to see the main characters face of our opening two minutes; this lets the audience judge her from her appearance as we made this character conform to the stereotypes of a teenage girl in a horror movie, as you can see in this print screen that she has blonde hair which represents her vulnerability as a stereotypical blonde in this genre of film. Only doing this clip for 2 seconds doesn't give too much away about the character leaving enigmas on who she is and why she is the antagonists victim making the audience want to continue watching to find these things out. We didn't use any special effects or transitions to go onto or leave the clip as we felt it ran smoothly with the match on action, we felt that special effects weren't necessary as the lighting in the woods suited the plot of the opening two minutes. In this clip you are able to hear diagetic and non diagetic sounds, the non diagetic sound is brought in at the beginning but you are able to hear it more on this clip because of the emotion we were trying to portray; the ambient sound gets louder as she turns around this builds tension in the audience as they know something will happen due to the horror conventions of something making you jump once fear is built up. Due to match on action we used a bridge sound for the diagetic sound of her gasp which helps the continuity of the two shots.  

This clip is when the opening credits begin to appear, we decided the simplicity of what we film is a good starting point for the credits while it still creates enigmas as we don't know who this character is and where she is going. Doing a shot on the ground also shows what the character is wearing bellow the waist as we don't get much of an idea in the rest of the opening two minutes, doing so lets the audience give their own judgement on what type of person this is; the brown boots suggest that she isn't too materialistic as the colour brown connotes nature. The fact she is wearing boots also tells the audience what time of year it is and what the weather is like, in this case it's cold and wintry. the transitions we used for the text lets it fade in and then out of the shot, this creates a more serious effect which goes with the genre and story line of the movie, the way we slowly made the text fade in and out, lasting around 5.5 seconds, also gives the viewer enough time to read what it has to say and to let them adjust to the settings/surroundings of the shot helping feel more involved with the emotion we were trying to portray. I feel this shot is like many other horror film openings as they also try to not give too much away about the characters. This clip didn't involve any match on action sequences, transitions or effects as we felt it linked to the other clips fine without it; changing the effects or adding a transition wouldn't give the same everyday life feel as the lighting was fine as it was.

This shot is when the girl arrives home and runs across her drive way to her house, this shot resulted in being 6 seconds long making it one of our longer lasting shots which was purposely done as we were trying to conform the conventions of a horror movie; long pase shots build tension and fear. We decided to use a transition for this clip because we needed to some how let the audience know that the time had changed and it is now later at night, the transition fades to black then fades onto this clip, doing this adds enigmas because the girl seems ok and unharmed in the clip before this, making the audience wonder what happened in the woods and why she is running to her home when we saw she was fine before. The lighting was good for this shot so we didn't want to change it by adding any effects or by adjusting the lighting. We experimented with different angles and shot types with this clip as we wanted to do something that would hide the location she was going to as we see in the next clip the door is open and the lights are on, this makes it seem like someone is watching her from the house. Doing a high angle long shot let us see more of the location which would let the audience relate to the girl as she  appears to be middle/lower class, and as we saw from our target audience research, lower class people went to see horror movies more than any other class, making the audience feel as though they can relate with the characters way of life resulting in them experiencing more fear even after the movies over as they live in a similar home to the girl. As you can see in the print screen the opening credits are still appearing on the screen, we felt continuing the credits till about 1 minute 30 seconds made it run smoothly and would give the viewers enough time to take in the atmosphere we attempted to create - building up tension slowly. In this shot you are able to see the characters clothing; giving you more of an idea on the type of person this character is, as you can see she is wearing, the scarf, coat and blue jeans tells us she is innocent and doesn't appear to be that out going, the colourful scarf shows that this character can show her more childish side.



This shot was specifically done to build up tension for the viewers which we did by sticking to the ambient lighting that created shadows on the walls, making the audience feel as though there is something else in the shot even though there isn't at this point. The non diagetic sounds we used was continued on from when the girl entered the house curiously, sticking to the same music meant we wanted to still show the same emotions from the character as it made the audience also feel the same emotions of being scared as they can tell something will happen but they don't know what; creating enigmas. We also added the three piano notes to this clip to give a sense of discovery as she curiously tries to find out why her doors were open and her lights were on. As you can see in this shot, the girl is wearing a white long sleeved top and jeans, the white top connotes purity and innocence which is how we were trying to perceive this character. The long sleeves also hint she is sensible for her age which doesn't conform to a stereotypical teenager in a horror movie. This hints that she is sensible as we could see that this movie is based in winter which means it would be cold. The shot we did before this one lasts 5 seconds long, making it one of our longer paste shots, we didn't want to make every shot as long as this one because the longer shots are added in to build fear whereas this shot is 3 seconds long; added to show the characters surroundings and where she is going. We decided to do a long low angle shot for this one as it does show the settings around the character without giving too much away, it creates enigmas as we dont know where she is going and why. The opening titles are still continuing to appear on the screen, this particular was placed on the top right hand corner because we felt it contrasts well against the dark shadows that the character created; we prefered to work the titles into the clips, resulting in them flowing well with the movie; making them look more realistic. We didnt use any transition are add any effects in this shot as we liked the way the lighting created shadows which links back to when I mentioned the audience imagining something else is in the house.

This is one of the close up shots we did in our opening two minutes, the reason we did this a close up is because we wanted to hide the location from the audience at this point of our film, this creates an enigma making the audience want to continue watching to see where that door leads to. The reason we put our opening credit in the top right corner is because it seemed like the most appropriate place for it as there isn't much going on in that corner, we wanted the opening credits to be clear enough for the audience to read them. The lighting in this shot is something me and the rest of my group like as it the shadows create a scary feel while the light from the other side of the door is reflecting out, showing a contrast between both sides of the door. This shot isn't very long because it is part of a match on action sequence, this means the shot before links onto this one to allow the film run smoothly. The sounds we used in this are continuing from the clips before of the protagonist walking up the stairs, we made the non-diegetic sounds very faint as we didn't want to create much of a build up too early. Making the non-diegetic sound subtle, allows the diegetic sound to stand out a lot more i.e. the opening of the door and the foot steps each of these sounds are regularly used in many other horror movies to build tension, which means we are conforming to these stereotypes.

We used special effects for this clip as we used an underwater camera, doing this unique idea that creates enigmas while building tension as the audience know something will happen but have no idea when. The low angle shot lets the audience see what the girl is doing under the water - cleaning the blood of her hand which then leads onto her hearing a noise and reacting fearfully, showing that she’s hurt but then adding in a sound effect (the door loudly closing) shows how scared she is as she forgets about her wound. We added in the door closing for this clip to use as diegetic sound, this confirms that there is someone in her home and something will happen, which is when the tension really begins to build. We didn't use any non-diegetic sound for most of this clip as we wanted the audience to experience the silence and only hearing the water splashing which makes it seem more realistic. We added in non-diegetic sound at the end of this clip just before she hears the door closing, in a way the silence makes the audience feel almost relieved as the music is a sign that something is about to happen. This is the longest shot out of our whole sequence, originally lasting 14 seconds we cropped it down but still kept it long enough to keep the audience on edge and interested; we cropped it down to 8 seconds. This is the last shot we had an opening credit on as we wanted to make them stop when things really start to happen which lets the audience concentrate on the actual film, not just the credits. We decided to place this credit in the bottom left corner because if we put it anywhere else it would've been too overpowering for the shot; the audience wouldn't be able to focus more on the story line.

In this print screen you are able to see one of the props we used - the toilet role, this was used in our opening two minutes for one of the protagonists wounds that she mysteriously got while getting home from the woods, this creates an enigma as we don't understand what happened for her to get injured. This is high angle shot we used to make the girl appear to be vulnerable as we know something is about to happen due to the music getting louder and her actions speeding up showing how scared she is. Doing a high angle shot also shows the location but we didn't want to give to much of the settings away because we wanted the audience to almost feel isolated as they are restricted to what is happening around the protagonist. As we got closer to the end of our opening two minutes we wanted to do longer paste shots to build more tension for the person watching, this shot is around 6 seconds long which makes the audience feel as though something will make them jump but they don't know when. The screen print I wrote about before this one is also a very long one, lasting 8 seconds long. This length of shots will result in the audience feeling on edge and wary of what will happen and when. The non-diegetic sounds get a lot louder as we get closer to the end, this is one of the best ways to make the audience understand what is going on in the film as they know in most horror movies, when the sound gets louder and more noticeable something will happen to one of the characters. To create this effect we layered our sounds over each other to build suspense and emotion.

This is our final shot of our opening two minutes, we felt putting the antagonist behind the protagonist even though she still reacts creates intriguing enigmas as we know that character may not be in the film any longer but we don't know why she is reacting to whats in front of her even though the antagonist is behind her. I think the lighting suits this shot as it shadows the protagonist while allowing the audience to get a glimpse of the antagonist before it changes to black. Shadowing the girl makes the antagonist the main subject of this shot as he is the result from the build up we created. We decided on doing a slightly low angle shot as it makes the antagonist appear more dominant than the girl in front which lets us know she isn't a strong character; it shows a contrast between the two. We use non-diegetic sound in this shot which is the loud piano as the antagonist moves his head, this is to build fear in the audience and to set the scene, most horror movies use non-diegetic sound to create this effect. The clothing the antagonist is wearing is clearly captured in this shot, the mask he is wearing was inspired by the antagonist in the movie 'The Strangers', the creepy mask doesn't let the audience see his face which creates more enigmas. We put blood on the mask as this character is conforming to a typical horror movie. The baggy, old clothing makes the character look almost lifeless which adds to the haunting effect.

This is the last thing you see when watching the opening two minutes, we decided to put the title last as it ran smoothly and let us use bridge sound when the girl screams, we also wanted to add some other sound effects here as a result in the fear we created. Adding a heart beat, the continuation of the ambient music, piano and also electricity sparks keeps the audience on edge instead of relieved which they would've more likely felt if this section was silent. The font we used and the colours go well with our the theme of our movie as the woods is obviously where a lot of trees are, and as you are able to see the font has a bark like texture to it making it a good choice, deciding to put the writing in capitals makes the title look bold and adds seriousness as it is supposed to be a serious movie; the capital letters stand out. Making the text white over a black background helps it stand out and conforms to a stereotypical title of a horror movie as they usually use a bold colour over a black background, for example Insidious; they use red text over the black. We decided to use black over white because black connotes death and emptiness while the white connotes hope and purity which represents the characters of our film as it shows the contrast between the good and the evil. Deciding to not use a transition for the actual clip but only to the text gave the end of the opening two minutes a haunting effect which would leave the audience to continue feeling different emotions such as fear as we used one that makes the writing fade in in sinc with the sound effects we also used at this moment.



What would you have done differently and why?
If I was to do anything differently this year, I would've tried to complete the story board before we begin to film as it would've made the process a lot quicker, easier and less stressful, although I think this, I also feel experiencing creating our opening two minutes more spontaneous as we discovered new different angles during filming, this allowed us to change up ideas mid way through, which we then added to our story board as we went along. 

What are you going to aim to do in your next production to improve your filmmaking?
To impove my film making I will do more research on different, unique shot types that I may not have used in this film, this will make our project a lot more intriguing as we would'nt have used these shot in this years film. I also will use more sound effects and non-diagetic sounds that will build more of the emotion we will try and create. Next year I feel our group will also try and complete our story board first so we can experiment more while shooting it; it will make it easier and quicker to film our different shots as it will give us a clearer idea on what we are planning to do. Next year I think I will also aim at trying out different effects and transitions because we didn't experiment much with them as it didn't seem necessary for our specific piece

What went well?
The things that went well was the way our group worked together and didnt have many disagreements or conflicts to do with the opening two minutes; we gave eachother a main job to do and made them the leader of that job, for example, I was editing but we made sure what we did to the movie was a group idea and we all agreed on it. Something else that went well was the timings of what we did, we made sure we did the most important things that could generate more ideas for the film such as filming different shots; the clip we didn't use in our movie but helped us come up with a new idea was a high angle shot we took in a tree, it let us come up with the idea of filming from an upstairs room in the house. I also feel we got the idea on how to make a match on action sequence run smoothly which made our opening two minutes seem a lot more realistic, this can also benefit us next year when we create a trailer for a film because of the experience we gained while creating and improving this years task. Another thing that went well was how quickly we managed to film our whole opening two minutes even though we didn't have a complete storyboard as it helped our group communicate a lot more during the process of filming as we felt we wanted to plan it there and then.

Annotations on Film

To show how we would attract/address our audience we decided to add speech notes to our final opening two minutes. We wrote about how the shot types, lighting, sounds/music and the films each element links to.