Feedback

Feedback from our first final cut was rather drastic.

Our teacher felt that the black screen at the beginning was much too long. It lasted for 29 seconds. He said that it would be good for a longer movie but not enough technical skills are shown. It also can be a bit confusing. The ending credits on black were also too long. They lasted for around 15 seconds. We were too influenced by the film Halloween (John Caprenter - 1978) but decided there should be some extra footage here as well.

A student, age 17, also gave feedback. He felt that the beginning was a bit boring and didn't catch his eye enough to actually want to watch on. It was also a bit confusing of what was going on as all it was were Sirens, Tyre Screech and then a woman talking.

Final Cut Version 2

This is my Final cut version 2. 

We changed the beginning and end due to feedback gained from our teacher and some other students.

Final cut Version 1

This is my Final Cut Version 1 

I will upload it to the social network Facebook for feedback as this is a main stage for our target audience. We have constantly uploaded rough cuts to this for feedback and will use this for Final Cut feedback too.

Cinematograpahy and Editing

In the film making process we did a lot of editing to improve the bare footage. On its own it wouldn't be as understandable or as scary as we would like with out sound and the cuts being in the right places.
Also a variety of shots were needed to portray a certain mood or reflect on the characters feeling and place in the world. Mise en scene in these shots are also important to the effect.

• In our first shot we had the view of looking down the stairs as Jack Loomis runs down them. This was to give the feeling that the camera was the eyes of the chaser. It also shows jack as being small, pathetic, and can easily clarify to the viewer that he is the victim in this story as we look down upon him. The colours of the surroundings are blank, and dull. This reflects the confusion that is meant to go on and how nothing is revealed. Exposition to the viewer is hidden.

• In our next shot we had jack running down the last flight of stairs, but as a POV shot. We had to cut the clip before to get it just right so it felt like flowed more realistically into it. We chose to have a POV shot to give the viewer a slice of how Loomis is feeling, especially with the panting over the top. We also managed to get a blur on this shot which if running for a long time, you get tired and weary and your vision will sometimes blur. We did this effect by having lawrence breathe onto the camera before running. We had to cut the end of this shot to make it flow more easily into the next one as well for match on action.

• Our next shot was to show Loomis' expression and reveal his feelings. therefore we had an extreme close up on his eyes to show this. We also had it go right up to his eyes so it wouldn't be as obvious of a change when it goes into the next shot.

• The first sports hall shot is there to show the new setting. Therefore we wanted to show the hall. We decided that we would start at Loomis' eyes and zoom out. We first Had problems with this shot but after re-filming with a skate board we got it right. We decided to film with a skateboard as we did not have the tracks and the right equipment to do it properly. The camera man would stand on the skateboard as joe would pull the board along the floor. The smoothness of the floor helped this shot a lot. We also used fast forward to get the feeling that not all is right in this setting. To emphasize the change between the shot before and this shot, we added in a boom. This makes it More clear that a change has happened, and may also scare the viewer a bit. The positioning of Loomis was important also. We decided to have him in the centre of the hall, being surrounded by the drawed on football net. This was in white, and symbolised that even though he may be the victim, he is guarded by some white hope (god) from dying himself.

• When showing The Girl, we knew we wanted her to be far away, but noticeable. When we filmed we made sure she was also in the centre of the hall, this signifies that she has importance and will be the centre of most attention. It also shows that she is vulnerable and in isolation. We edited the clip to have a shaky effect which adds a supernatural feel to it, we also made it very short so it spooks the viewer even more. We did this by using the Earthquake effect on Imovie, but we lowered the levels because we didnt want it too shaky to be annoying. 

• When returning to loomis we decided to film it in a dutch angle. This signifies that all is not right, and also he does not feel comfortable in this situation.

• A key part to our film was the moving girl. I had only ever seen this done once in a movie before, but do not ember where from. I thought this was the most creative part of our film and wanted to get it just right. We re filmed it several times before we made it perfect, each time adding more key movements as we felt not enough suspense was made during the time it took to move. Each shot was originally filmed at 3 seconds each but to make it more scarier we Had them cut to about half a second and then left the final shot longer to emphasize the movement is over. She also is back to the centre position which is where she started which can signify everything is about Cycles. We also included sound effects for each movement she made to emphasize it even more.

• To show the reaction of the two characters meeting we decided to use the 180 Degree Rule. this is where the camera stays on one side of an imaginary line between two characters and never crosses it, to save confusion. This is also part of the hidden editing process where editors try to make editing seem like it hasn't happened.
  

• At Beginning of our movie we used our production logo. This was made in Logo Creator which joe had at home. He put the text onto a black background and then added a blue tint effect to it to symbolise horror movies. A serif font would have been a better choice, but we wanted our logo to portray a company that can do a wide range of genres, not just one. After that we used the dark screen with titles on it. The titles were in blue (blue-tinted effect style) to symbolise that this is a supernatural movie. It was also in serif, which is gothic, and common for horror movies to use. We had a heartbeat(From Imovie Soundeffects) come on when the titles did too, this helped build tension, as well as seem like the titles are the heartbeat. The shots in between each credit card were of Loomis' feet. We didnt want to show his full body yet as we wanted to leave a little bit of narrative enigma to who these feet belong too. 

• Over the first few shots in our film we had music playing in the background. This was composed for us by a Friend. The long drawn out piano key adds tension to the scene and the drum beat in the background symbolises a heartbeat to make the viewers heartbeat go faster. It also has an electronic twist to it to relate to the Target Audience of our Film.

The Group

Our group consists of three members, they are

• Sam Thomas
• Wil Nelson
• Joe Shrimpton

The original group plan was to be just Me(Sam) and Wil, as we had worked togther before and know each other quite well and how each other work. Joe became part of our group for the main project as this gave our group more thought into our project and also more ideas came out of it.

LOGO

This is our logo. It has been modified to create a horror effect as in it has a blue tine which is a common effect in horror movies to create a supernatural feel. It shows that we specialize in horror movies.
The reason we picked SWj Productions as our name was because Joe was a member of the group and to make it more fair we used our initials as S for Sam, W for Wil, and J for Joe.

Changes that could be made would be that a serif font would be a better choice as we are doing a horror movie, however we didnt want our logo to portray just oe genere of movie. Also the logo needs to be put on black background, but having it on white means we can remove the background on put it on any colour easily.

Evaluation

Evaluation

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Unused Video Clips

This is the first try at our Girl scene and also what we did it like when we re-filmed. We decided the first time we did it that the lighting wasn't as good as we wanted and also we wanted more shots.

This is our attempt at the zoom in scene after bursting through the door. We decided to re-film, due to feedback, because the zoom in was too amateur-ish. We re-filmed by not having an actual Zoom in but by having Lawrence(Loomis) running up to the camera for an extreme close up.

This is our tries for our Zoom Out scene in the sports hall. The shot we wanted was to be a zoom out but shaky. I decided to run with the camera but we found that this shot was too shake. We eventually filmed with a skateboard which made it much smoother, but still shaky.

Sound and Music

In the beginning of our film we used a Police Siren from the Imovie Effects already installed. We also used a Tyre screech and heartbeat, also from the Imovie Collection. We used these because they were able to build up exposition, but not give too much away as it was only audio and no visual aspects to it leaving narrative enigma.
We decided to record a speaking part as well. This also gives more exposition as it names the character and also reveals what might be wrong with the Main character (loomis) as she is calling out for him to wake up.

This song was recorded for the purpose to build tension in our first few shots. It makes the viewers heartbeat increase because of the drum beat and also builds up tension with a climatic Boom at the end emphasising a change of scene. This was composed by Rob Abrahams. 



This was our drum beat. It was made to signify the humans heartbeat, therefore it would create suspense for the viewer and would hopefully increase their heartbeat too.


This was our first attempt at our theme. We took the idea from halloween, as you can probably tell. Since it sounded so much like halloween though(Feedback told us this) we decided to not use it in our final cut.


This is our main theme. It was created by another composer to the original theme and the song at the beginning of the movie. It has a different style but is still in line with horror as it has Minor chords and also a high pitch piano playing. To relate to the audience there is also some electronic notes too.

Target Audience(Further Description)

AGE:Our age range for our production would be aimed mainly towards the youth audience (15-24). The actors in the production Are of around this age and the innovative of the film will include a setting familiar to them (A school) and also will be filled with people their age. This makes it easier for them to relate to the Main Protagonists. Our movie will also include some horror scenes, sex scenes and also language which is appropriate for the 15 certificate but will be toned down(Slight gore, 'Reference of sex' or slight nudity, only 'menacing' horror) so it does not go over to the 18 certificate (E.G. 'High nudity' sex scenes, strong bad language E.G. 'Cunt' etc.)

ETHNICITY: The film will be aimed at a wide range of ethnicity. This is shown by the Caucasian cast that we have. It could mean that it is only aimed at that audience but it doesn't as it is seen as the norm in the industry anyway. To spread appeal even more later in the narrative there could be a character of another ethnicity.

GENDER: Since it is a horror film, it is seen as being a mainly male orientated audience. We include a girl in our production however to widen the audience to females. Horror has widely become a female genre as well though as girls will frequently have a 'Girls night in' and watch scary movies together.

Socio-Economic Groupings: Our film is aimed at the middle class. This is because our characters are of the middle class and will focus around areas recognisable to them as daily life places. In professional terms it would be aimed at C1C2 classes.

Nationality/Region: Our filmed will be aimed at a wide audience, hopefully spreading too USA, however, this will be difficult as it is a full English cast, but it does follow standard American movie narratives and also has Intertextual References to films they will know e.g. Halloween, The Ring and Psycho. If it was a professional film and had a larger budget, we would take the step Working Title did and invest in having an American actor as the main protagonist to widen the appeal to Americans.

Fans of..: We would hope to be able to appeal to fans of classic horror movies such as Halloween (John Carpenter -1978) as this has been a big influence on the way we edit our movie. We also would like to attract people who may have seen The Ring(Gore Verbinski - 2002) which means people who are fans of classic Japanese horror movies including The Grudge(Takashi Shimizu - 2004).

Film Synopsis

A boy in a coma has horrifying dream, when he wakes up and moves school events happen to him and others around, related to his dream.
I would say its Life on Mars (BBC) meets The Ring. This is because it has elements of weird goings on in a coma (just like life on mars) And also has a character very similar to the one in The Ring.

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of our media movie. It has no editing but cuts done to each clips. We decided to get feedback from both our class(Target Audience) and our teacher(Knows the industry well).

Our teacher gave us feedback saying that we would need to use fast paced editing. This would fit in more a younger audience is more used to faster paced cuts and also it is a good way to build tension to improve heart rate. We also would need to consider re-filming some scenes E.G the zoom in on " Loomis' " was too Amateur-ish.

When we showed our sample footage to our target audience(Selection from our class) they generally liked what we had done. They liked the way we did the scene with the girl in the chair moving across the floor. However they did notice that there was a slight zoom out during this scene which doesn't fit well. 

From showing this rough cut and getting the feedback from the viewers i have learnt some industry techniques to use in the film and also what to avoid such as Manual Zoom in. I also found that the narrative of the movie was good for our target audience but wasn't up to industry standard.

  

StoryBoard

Storyboard

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Storyboard 2

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After looking through our storyboard we relised we had to change a few shots to get it right. The first few shots were changed. The last page remains the same as before.
Storyboard

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For our new cut we need to add in the new shots on our storyboard. This is our new storyboard.

Story Board Newest

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Stroy Board Newest 2

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Production Schedule

Production Schedule

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Changes

On Friday the 20th we Re-Filmed the scenes with loom is in the sports hall. We used a tripod but also used a skateboard to create a smooth zoom.

On Monday the 23rd we Re-Filmed the scenes which features the girl in the sports hall. We decided to add More shots and a also change the lighting.

Locations

We set our Film inside a school. This is because it is a setting recognisable to the audience and also is a key part to the narrative later on, past the opening. It needed to be an empty school however, this is because i wanted to create atmosphere and tension which would create suspense as the audience is waiting for something to happen. Therefore we new we would have to film during a quiet period, so we filmed during lesson time. This gave us only specific times to film, but was easy enough to get this time because of free periods our crew and cast had.

Our first location was a corridor and stairway. We wanted there to be Windows in the stairway as it would give a brief view of the location around the school as the audience will need bits they can recognise later on in the movie. The stair way we found seemed very suitable and had a good amount of flights of stairs to work with. It also has blank walls. It gives the feel of being unknown, and confusing as not much is being revealed. It can also show the characters confusion to where he is and what is happening.

We also needed a hall for our second scene. This would need to be a sports hall as sport would be a part of the Main Protagonists life in the narrative . We found a hall at our school very useful. It had basketball nets on the wall and court markings on the floor which the Audience will easily recognise as a sports hall. It was very big too which was use full for the shots we wanted to include E.G. Extreme Long Shots.
The hall is good also because it is big and spacious. This makes the two characters feel isolated and will create a spooky atmosphere with just the two being there alone. It will also create more tension between the two.

This is the Accident and Emergency section of a local hospital. It is used in our media to show the danger and the exposition of how our Protagonist got into his coma and his current situation he is in.

Sound Research

For our film we wanted to have eerie, dark mood sounds and music. We also needed it to be copyright free so we set out looking for copyright free sites.We found sources like;

• www.freeplay-music.com
• www.creature-commons.com
• www.copyleft-music.com

We found Freeplay Music specially good as you could pick the mood of the music you wanted and then it would bring up a lit pf these sorts of sounds.We also Had a source that was the Halo OST. This was said to be apparently copyright free but we were not sure and would need to look into it further to find out.

What we eventually concluded on doing for our music is to get it composed for our media. Since no one could work any music creating software we decided to use Luke Thomas. I knew him as he was my brother, He had also done other music projects before using music programs and recording from real instruments such as guitars and keyboards therefore i thought he would be a good choice.

Casting and Costume

When casting my media we decided that we would need a main protagonist to not be very strong but be male.
Our first choice of casting for 'Loomis' was Ashley Carter. He takes theatre studies and has blonde hair, blue eyes and isn't of a very big physique. However, he became unavailable.

Our second choice, and final choice, was Lawrence Mellor.He had previous acting skills and also looked the part as he was of a small physique, red hair and blue eyes. He didn't fit perfectly but he was still the counter type to the male protagonist and was what we were looking for(E.G. Stereotype could be Zac Efronhttp://teenhollywood411.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/zac-efron-portada.jpg). Lawrence is part of the middle social class and is aged 17 which reflects our audience as this is around what we are aiming for so they can relate to him easier.

For this character we decided that he would wear pyjamas. This is because 'Loomis' in a dream and having him wearing pyjamas would show the audience that he is not in a normal place and something weird is going on, eventually they will find out he is in a coma, but not in the first Two minutes. The pyjamas he will wear will be of a style that reflects the audience. Because of his age they are more 'in fashion' than classic pyjamas and are also sold by Topman which is where the Target Audience will shop at from time to time. (www.topman.com) 

For the second character, The Girl, we chose Holly Stephenson. We set out looking for a girl who was Small, thin and had dark hair. She fitted perfectly and had the pose we wanted for being scary.

The costume for this character will have to be dark and fully black. This reveals to the audience that she is an evil presence and that she is not normal. We could not get a black dress long enough so we Had her wearing a big black shirt and black leggings.
Our entire cast is of two characters. they are Caucasian s well. This is because in my local year group, the majority of the ethnicity is of Caucasian ethnics so therefor it would be hard to fit other ethnic characters into my cast.

Changes Made

When filming our media film we noticed it was hard to do the shot where we did a 360 degree shot of where we pan around the stair case. We thought that since the location wasn't big enough we changed the shot to a tracking shot of the character running down the stairs

We cut the bottom of the stair so it flowed into the POV shot much better
We cut the zoom in of the character so that it didn’t zoom pass his head. This was because we thought if it zoomed past his head it would put the character out of focus.
We cut shots of the girl to add tension so it was just a short sight of the girl. This made it seem like a subliminal image.
We noticed the clip of the camera tracking away from 'Loomis' was too shaky so we decided to re-film it at a later date. This made it too hard to focus on the character, even though we dont want a smooth shot we thought this was still over the top.
We eventually decided, due to feedback given from our Teacher, that a manual zoom in for the shot outside the door was too Amateur-ish. Therefore we decided to re-film it so when the character rushes up to the camera, it is already at the eyes.

Screenplay

Screenplay

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This is a draft of our screenplay. It may be revised as we properly work it out.

This is our revised screenplay. Changed due to feedback and also new ideas thought up to improve.
Screenplay Revised

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We chose to not include the heartbeat and the heavy panting as we found this annoying, and felt that using the police siren and car crash it gave a bigger shock, which is what we wanted. We decided to add in the voice over of the woman(Loomis' mother) Because it adds exposition. It also tells you that he is asleep, and in a dream, but you do not yet know he is in a coma.

Screenplay 3

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This is our third and final screenplay. We decided to change it due to feedback we got about our product from our teacher and some of our Audience. The black at the beginning and end of the product was seen as dull and also a lack of technical skills so we filled it in with extra shots and changing where the credits went.

Final Idea (Group).

COMA - Title has been used before in a 1978 Thriller by director Michael Chrichten

First 5 seconds of black, heavy panting.

Boy running down stairs. camera panning / rotating 360

(Between floor titles appear in shot)

Continues going down stairs, camera carries on panning

Boy runs out of stairway up to camera (Close up on face)

Zooms out to be in the hall (Shaky fast forward thingy)

A boy is standing in a big hall in hospital pajamas, long shot of boy in distance.

Shot back up to boy, Confused facial expression
Reverse Shot to other side of hall, long shot with chair in corner, girl in chair, head down.
Chair moves towards boy direction(Up to camera) in short cuts.
Boy frightened covers face. (close up) dutch angle

180 Degree shot back to the girl
Boys hand reaches for girl, Mid shot, hand comes across screen.
Face comes from other side screaming loud

Story would continue to have the boy being in a coma in a hospital. Wierd things start to happen to him that related to dreams when in his coma.

The target audience for this idea would be mature youth as this is the average age for most horoor movies (15-35) This target audience is also much easier to get feedback from as they always use the technology we would be viewing our media on and also we are surrounded by them. The narrative also reflects what gender we are aiming at. Since it is a horror it is generally aimed at boys, buyalso the fact we use female characters emans that females will aslo be attracted, this is a key element as we do not want to exclude the female audience.
The rating our movie would be given by the BBFC would be a 15. Horror scenes will be kept to 'Strong threat and Menace' situations. 'High Gore scenes will unlikely to be accptable' therefore will not have many of them. Strong langauge will be invloved but the worse words e.g 'Cunt' will be avvoided. Sex will occur in the full movie but no full sex scenes are acceptable for this certifacte.
Mise en Scene will be important. Blank walls to indicate that the character is lost, chains can give a spooky feel to the scene, dark lighting will give a creepy atmsphere and will give tension to the audience. Clothing will be important as it will reflect the characters attitude E.G. The girl is in black showing she is evil.

Equipment and Software

The Camera i will be using to record the video footage is called Cannon Wide screen MV920

It is 115mm in length, 92mm in height, 49,mm in width and 375 grams in weight. The LCD screen is 2.7 inches. Te video type is PAL, it also has features to change the white balance;

• Auto White Balance
• Manual Brightness/Contrast Settings
• Multiple features to change lighting and focus such as Daylight, Nighttime, and Sport etc.

It has a built in microphone and its audio output is Stereo. It has a 800x Digital zoom and a 25x optical zoom.

I will be using a tripod for some shots to keep the camera steady. The tripod we used was very useful as it had expandable legs and also you can change the angle of the camera-rest for shots such as a Dutch angle. It is also very stable with adjustable feet as well.
The main good thing about this tripod is that it is adjustable in about anyway which makes it easier to get a steady shot of whatever angle you want.

The software i will be using to edit is IMovie 06. This is one of the Apple brands piece of software for home use. Sticking to the apple name its is made to be used by anyone and therefore is typically simple to use compared to other pieces of software on the market such as Final Cut pro.
The advantages of using this software is that it comes free with any mac. Therefore you do not have to pay any extra cost to use it. There are also many tutorials out there on the Internet for if you get stuck however I found it simple enough to use without one.
The disadvantages with this software is that it can easily glitch due to not being a highly professional program. One glitch that we found when testing was that it would sometimes move clips around but without showing the movement on the time line when applying various effects,which got very annoying.
My strengths with this program is the timing of certain audio clips with the video clips and also what effects look good where. I believe this shows from audience feedback from prelim task and also my first micro-drama.
My weaknesses with this program is to get sounds that I created myself. To do this you have to use software such as garageband or Logic Pro but I do not know how to use these and therefore have to find sounds elsewhere, or from someone who can use them.

Research of Genre and Other Research

Our groups movie decided that our genre would be horror therefore researched.

I researched books on the subject..

Horror Sources

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Wils Research

Wils Research From Www

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I also looked at the movie Halloween. I decided to watch this movie as it is one of the movies which define the Horror genre.
Watching the movie i noticed that sound effects were a key part as a sound effect can add suspense and also terror to a key part E.G Whenever Michael Myers will suddenly appear a high pitched screech would be played to alert the Consumer and scare them more.
Also lighting can be a key effect. lower lighting can reflect the dark mood of the scene and can also give it a more scary feel as people tend to have a natural fear to the dark. Also a blue lighting effect can show that there is a supernatural feel to the place E.G The Myers house on the first scene is shown in a blue light, hinting it is not right, and also the shadow of the trees show pointy branches over the house, like daggers.
Emotion is also a key part of a horror movie. Showing emotion means that the Consumer will know how the character is feeling and will react to that in feeling sympathetic for them or feeling the same way. This would be done with close ups which portray the emotion of the face very well.

Horror Features:

•Usually its the female characters who get killed. Theres usually more than one female character, for example in Halloween Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a vulnerable character who doesn't show a sexual appeal, but her friends are the total opposite as they are the busty blonde stereotypes so this is binary opposition.

•Most horror films have females as the main protagonist and one of there Fathers is related to the police. This is used in Halloween and Nightmare On Elm Street because Nancy Thompson's farther is a detective. The police character always dies as they try to be the hero but always fail because horror films are mainly targeted at a youth audience no an older aged target audience.

•Horror films are all about the scary character which is usually addressed as a human serial killer in films like Psycho and Halloween. However sometimes monster and aliens are used as a scary character like in the film Jeepers Creepers or you can have horror films with the supernatural character like aliens etc.

•The horror films with the human killers usually were a mask to cover the face such as in Scream or Halloween. Masks usual signify the scary character who is evil which can relate to one of Propps character types.

Name Research

After research on the title 'Coma' we found there are multiple media texts with the same name:

• Coma, directed Michael Crichton in 1978 (thriller/mystery)
• Coma (TV), directed by Paula van der Oest in 1994
• Coma, directed by Arash Moirian in 2004 (comedy/drama)
• Coma, directed by Liz Garbus in 2007/1 (documentary/reality TV)
• Coma, directed by Anil Baral in 1998 (short)
• Coma, directed by Stuart Charles in 2005 (short)
• Coma, directed by Maria Beatty in 2007/2 (short/fantasy)
• Coma, directed by Luis Felipe Hernandez Alanis in 2006 (short/animation)

(Sources gained from www.imdb.com)
The original Movie Coma was about a woman who is working in a hospital and people are going under operations that are simple procedures and they are going terribly wrong and end up going into comas and then horror ensues as there is something more sinister to it that there seems.
Our movie is similar to this as our narrative also focuses on problems to do with a coma. It is also tied in with the popular BBC Police Drama Life on Mars. This is also to do with a coma but the outside world effects the coma, like in our movie.