FC: Evaluation questions 1, 2 3 and 6.

Finished article m8 (1) from BenJacquin

9095: Oliver Hurditch

Final Piece



Preliminary Task

Evaluation

Production:

Reflection on Shoot 11/1/2015
Reflection on Shoot 18/1/2015

Logistics:

Logistics and Planning for Shoots
Call Sheet and Risk Assessment
Location Recce
Animatic
Rough cut
Rough Cut of Flashbacks

Research:

Title Sequence Analysis
Audience Research
Pitch
Inspiration and Revised Concept
Concept Development-Costume
Technical Analysis
Opening Sequence Analysis
Film Noir and Femme Fatale
Treatment
Wilderness Woods Feedback
Group Discussion for Production
Institutional Context
History of Horror
Zombie Horror 
Movie Opening Analysis

9099: Benjamin Jacquin

Final Piece



Preliminary Task

Evaluation

Production:

Reflection on Shoot 11/1/2015
Reflection on Shoot 18/1/2015
Post Production

Logistics:

Call Sheet and Risk Assessment
Logistics and Planning for Shoots
Location Recce
Animatic
Rough Cut
Rough Cut of Flashbacks

Research:

Title Sequence Analysis
Audience Research
Inspiration and Revised Concept
Pitch
Film Noir and Femme Fatale
Technical Analysis
Treatment
Opening Sequence Analysis
Concept Development-Plot Synopsis
Wilderness Woods Feedback
Group Discussion for Production
Institutional Context
Gender Representation in the Horror Genre
Psychological Horror
Movie Opening Analysis

OH: Evaluation

 Question 1)

 



Question 2)

 
Question 3)

 
Question 4/5)

Audience Research)

Question 6)

Question 7)

BJ: Evaluation

Question 1



Question 2



Question 3

Question 4/5

 

Question 6

Question 6 from bennyjacquin

Group: Final Piece

Changes

• During today we have changed the image control settings of all the shots in our film. This involved taking the saturation down a lot and slightly adjusting the brightness and contrast. This was suitable as it fit more to the mood of our piece. It also fits with the film noir style that we wanted to emulate.
• We also changed the titles, as stacking a few actors names on top of each is not conventional. We took inspiration for our titles from the movie 'Monsters'. This involved also changing the font to again fit to the film noir theme. We also animated the titles so they got bigger during the shot.
• We also added a white flash at the beginning and end of our flashbacks to emphasise the fact that they are flashbacks. This was done by added a blank image at the beginning and the adding a keyframe so it faded out after 4 frames. This gave the illusion of a quick flash. Along with a flash sound this worked very well.

Group: Final Cut of Horror Opening

Feedback

Group: Progress

After the new shoots it was obvious that there was a clear colour difference between the shots, so we considered changing the colour balance of red, green and blue. However if we were to use Argento influences, we could embrace the colour differences and even highlight the differences between the scenes and make it more like an Argento piece.



The Light blue then contrasts with the light blue

In the new scene it has yellow and red

The red and the blue contrast



 

 



We'll now make these changes to our piece and export it into a mpeg and upload it to Youtube, then before tomorrows lesson we'll get a few people to watch it and see if they can follow the plot etc. and make the necessary changes tomorrow. It was highlighted today that the final shot that was filmed didn't have the knife in it so we may have to re-film it tomorrow.

 

 

Group: Order of Titles

0:07 - 0:10   FBO pictures presents
0:14 - 0:16   Names of actors
0:20 - 0:23   Casting by Freddie Carus
0:31 - 0:35   Produced by Freddie Carus
0:49 - 0:53   Written by Ben Jacquin
1:08 - 1:12    Directed by Ollie Hurditch

After each of our analysis of titles we have come to a joint decision on the most appropriate order of titles of our production.

Group: Roughcut

Below is the roughcut we have created of our final piece. There is still one week left in which we will have to add titles.

BJ: Post Production

This week I have been focusing on taking a lead role in the editing process. This included adding sound and getting all of our clips in the right order on the timeline. After we had done this, we created a new project to experiment with the flashback scenes. In this part I edited a couple of scenes however Ollie then took a lead role and edited a sequence himself.

After finishing the flashbacks we exported it and then uploaded it to our other project and put it on the timeline where we wanted it. It then took some time to figure out where the flashbacks would fit in best, however we found a spot and stuck with it.

We decided to have the dialogue from the interrogation carrying on over the top of the flashbacks. I did this by moving the flashbacks over the top of the clip which dialogue we wanted to use on the timeline. This meant that the flashback scene would show, however the sound from the other clip overlayed it.

I have also had to do a lot of minor colour adjustments. By this I mean I had to adjust the brightness and contrast of the shots, because some had shelving in the background. By adjusting the contrast, it darkened the background meaning that you could not see the shelving anymore.

OH: Reflection on Shoot 18/01/2015

Where and When?

• At 12:30 on Sunday 18th January 2015 Ben and I met Freddie at his house to proceed in filming the murder scene which takes place during the flashbacks from the female actor in the interrogation (Louise Carus).

A full view of the scene

What scenes were we focusing on?

• The main reason we went to his house was so that we were able to film in a house which is where the flashbacks take place to the murder of this man, and how the female actors mind remembers the set. 
• So when we arrived at the house we weren't entirely sure as to where we were going to film the murder scene. However after entering the living room and seeing the orange/red rug on the floor we realised it could be a good idea to include it as it would give a clear dominating colour in the scene allowing the audience to differ from the two.

What was your individual role in the shoot?

• When we arrived there it was clear that either Ben or I had to act as the deceased in the house and as Ben didn't want to do it i stepped forward for the role. Ben had preprepared a tee which had red stains on it which i had to get changed into and i added ketchup on top of the stains to give the blood a thicker look. Ultimately making it look more realistic a product of post production. 
• When i was laying on the floor it wasn't like i wasn't making any contribution to the filming at all with the ideas for the close ups on the props such as the card with blood on it and the pull focus onto the phone coming from myself. 

Did your storyboard affect camera and framing?

• As i had done limited storyboarding towards the ideas of the flashbacks it was open to imagination as we got there and brainstormed our ideas together on what we should film and what not. This ended up in us deciding on a hand full of close ups of the props around that had been scattered to make it look like something had happened, as well as shots of the body covered in blood.

What do you think went well?

• I think we got a good range of different shots, from those with no to lots of movement as wells as close ups apposed to shots showing the whole body and the set of the room. 
• Also i feel we used the set efficiently and used our time effectively this time and wasted no time mucking around with how to work the equipment as we now understood how to work it all.

What challenges did you come across?

• The main challenges were that as there was no storyboard to base our ideas on it meant that we had so many ideas about what shots we could use and no clear vision which did waste time as we took time out taking some shots that were of no use at all.
• Also with Ben taking the front seat in filming last week, i wanted to try it this week however i had to act as the deceased which led to unfair use of the camera. Thus, next time i will certainly need to head the filming.

How are you going to use this to influence your next shoot?

• As we have now entered the editing stage its clear that we've missed out a few shots such as the picture slides across the desk from the male to female and a few close ups of dialogue. However this means that we won't need to go back to set to do these so, as i haven't done much camera work, i can go through these shots which need to be done and record them to be edited in.

  

  A close of the victim lying dead

FC: Reflection on Shoot 18/1/2015

The shoot was at my house on Saturday the 18th of Janruary. it was a brisk Saturday morning, frost adorned the grass, iridescent raindrops shimmered in the morning light as three young men got psyched up to shoot some media coursework. Go team.

What scenes were we focussing on

• we were shooting the flashback scenes only so these are the ones we focussed on.
• we wanted to get a good array of different shots because we didn't have a specific order in which we were going to put them in. By having the same shot from a view different angles we freed up possibilities.    

What did I do?

• helped set up the room to look like a murder had taken place.
• helped film, many creative ideas/decisions.

How did the story board affect our shoot?

• We didn't use a story board so we didn't have any plan to follow. This meant we basically improvised all our shots which turned out to work quite well.

What worked particularly well

• We used faked blood and other aesthetics to make the murder look real, this worked quite well and produced realistic results.
• we also had to trash up the room a bit with a random assortment of ornaments which went well as the room looked like a murder had taken place.
• we made use of props like broken glasses to make the situation more believable.
• we used quite a wide range of shots to convey the murder and I think the red colour scheme came out nicely on the camera.

What were the challenges in this shoot?

• we shot during the day so we were not sure how difficult it would be to convey horror in broad daylight.
• Obviously we didn't have our storyboards so that was a bit of an inconvenience when we came to film the stuff.

BJ: Reflection on Shoot 18/01/2015

Location

• We arrived at the location which was Freddie's house at 12:30. We then took some time in his living room rearranging things to make it look like a real murder scene. This meant having things thrown on the floor to make it look like there was a scuffle.

Scene

• The scene we focused on in this shoot were the flashbacks. These scenes will be inter cut between the interrogation scenes. This particular shoot involved a lot more pro-filmic effects like blood on the shirt and knife. 
• The only cast member in this scene was Ollie, as he played the part of the murder victim.

Individual Contribution

The t-shirt 

• For this shoot I took a lead role in camera work. We all alternated between holding the camera, and Ollie took some effective shots of the candle. 
• I also made the t-shirt and knife that we were using for our props. I used fake blood spray to make the shirt look like it has been soaked in blood. I also sprayed the knife with the fake blood.

Use of Storyboard

• In this shoot, the storyboard proved not very useful as the shots we needed were just close ups of objects. This meant that it did not require much planning. We came up with most of our shots on the spot.

What Worked Well

Pull focus onto phone

• We felt that the pull focus shots of the knife and phone worked very well. Also the dutch angle shot going up the body of the victim to reveal his face worked very well.
• We also thought that we got all the shots that we thought were necessary in a good amount of time. This gave us a wider range of shots to choose from.

A full view of the scene

What Didn't Work Well

• The only thing I would say did not work well was the fact we shot in daylight. This meant that a lot of light came through Freddie's conservatory, making the film very bright. This can be changed in post-production, however it was a problem on the day of shooting.

  

  A close of the victim lying dead

  
  
  
  
  
  

Group: Rough Cut of Flashback Scenes

Today our group went onto premiere and put together a rough cut of the flashback scenes. This meant we could test out the footage without having to worry about all the other footage. For this task, Ollie and I took turns in creating a flashback scene each. We are still undecided on which one we should use as we don't know how they will fit with the rest of our footage.

Below is the flashback scene Ollie created:

And below is the one I created:

Group: Examples of Our Title With Fonts.

Title ideas:
"Causa" is Latin for motive. We are considering using this in our title but are not sure of whether it should be just the word "causa" on its own or with other words, "No Causa" for example.



Group: Animatic

 

Animatic

The task of creating the storyboard has been able to put all of our ideas together into one continuous piece so that we have a product of all of our thoughts. First of all Ollie had to draw the frames to each of the shots in a box which represented the shot size and movement in the shot, and under there was a few lines to which he could describe the sound in the shot and the shot size. This then had to be captured on camera and put on the computer to be edited into the specific shot time. Then sound was added to give a further sense of realism to the piece.

Complete story board

From creating this piece of work, its let us know what our original ideas look like and the effect of shot time and shot size on the piece and we can expand on this and learn from our mistakes to create a truly horror centred piece.

FC: Reflection on Shoot 11/01/2015

We started shooting at 2:30 and finished quite quickly, by around 4:30 we had all the shots that we felt like we needed for what was planned for that day of filming. The location was really suited to what we were trying to do, however we did run into some problems with the lighting which was quite grainy when it came out on the camera. However we have since changed it on premier. Before we started Ben and Ollie were there setting up for about an hour because I was late. However we ploughed on regardless and ended up with some good shots.
    The shots we focussed on were based around the dialogue between our antagonist and interrogator. We had to get all the shots we needed of the antagonist because my sister was quite pushed for time. We also wanted to focus on these scenes because they are vital to the production so we wanted to get them shot first. Our storyboard mainly dictated what shots we shot however we did change some parts and ended up with more tracking shots then we planned because the use of the track and dolly seemed quite effective. some of our tracking shots were quite shaky but overall they were successful and produced good results. the shoot was quite challenging in some parts, for example the two people acting hadn't really seen the script before so some shots were wasted by the actors incompetence. We did manage to get some really nice shots though and got all the footage we planned to get for that day of filming in the next shoot we will probably concentrate more on close ups and faster smaller shots but we have learned how important lighting is from our first shot.

OH: Reflection on Shoot 11/01/2015

Where and When?

• The first shoot we were to do as a group took place in a friends workshop in Hadlow
• On the 11th of January 2015, Ben and I arrived at 2:30 and left at 5

What Scenes were we focusing on?

• The main focus of the days filming was to shoot the scene of the interrogation were the male actor (Freddie Carus) and female actor (Louise Carus) use the script to act out the idea of an interrogation scene.
• However we knew it would be possible to film the other scenes such as the one where the husband to the female being interrogated stalks to the building in a set of POV shots. Also we knew it was possible that we might have been able to shoot the murder shots however this was only if we found the right sets in and around the warehouse. Not only this but we knew that the additional shot ideas were heavily light dependant.

The single source of lighting that we had was the desk light

What was my individual role in the shoot?

• As this was our first shoot i was full of ideas as to how to create an eerie feel and interrogation feel to the shots. So the night before i'd watched the interrogation scene from the dark night and saw that none of the shots were stills and the camera was always moving, no matter if it was a track or zoom. So i came up with the idea to put the track behind both of the chairs as well as next to the table, enabling the camera to move along behind the two actors as they entered conversation. 
• Individually i'd say i mostly helped to set up the scene and shared my visions of shots with the members of the group allowing us to shoot these level four shots.

Did your storyboard affect your camera and framing?

• As most of the ideas came from myself towards the drawing of the storyboard you could say that when i shared my ideas to the group they were partly based on the layout of the storyboard. However we didn't allow ourselves to be tied down and restricted by the bounds of the storyboard and let our ideas roam free to create the different shots, pull focus, over the shoulder etc.

Andy and I sorted out the set and cleaned the desk

What do i think went well?

• Personally, i believe the lighting went well and the setting up of the shoot. When Ben and I arrived we had a fixed mindset as to what the set was to look like and didn't want to compromise any shots simply due to the set not being appropriate, so we put a lot of time in doing that. Obviously part of the setting up was adjusting the lighting as we tested out the different effects on the camera from different types of lights and picked the one which suited our idea the best which was the desk lamp.

Ben and I tried out a few different camera angles 

What challenges did you come across?

• The main challenge was the fact that the female actor, Louise, had a time bracket that she was available so we had to tailor our shoot around her. This did end up with us rushing some of the shots and possibly not getting the right angle to some of the shots. As well as not being able to go back and re-do some of the shots which weren't of the best quality.

Some of the set was quite dusty so we had to clean before hand

How are you going to use this influence in your next shoot?

• This will probably be the last time that we will need to use this location so we won't have the advantages of pre made sets and lighting all ready established so i'd assume we'll have to follow the same procedure as this time in the next shoot. However we know that we need to get all of the shots done at least three to four times just incase there are faults in a few of them and we wouldn't be able to go back to correct them.

BJ: Reflection on Shoot 11/01/2015

Location

On Sunday the 11th January we carried out our first shoot for our final production. The shoot was carried out at our friend Andrew Jackson's house located in Hadlow. Near his home, he has a workshop built from corrugated steel that was a great place to shoot. Before the shoot, Ollie and I arrived at about 1 o'clock to set everything up and practice some shots.

Scene

• The scene we were focusing on in this shoot was the interrogation between the female suspect and the male inspector, which makes up the majority of our film. 
• In this scene the two cast members were Freddie and his sister, Louise, who kindly lent herself to our project. 
• We focused on getting all the shots we needed with Louise as she is going back to university this week.

A practice over-the-shoulder shot

Individual Contribution

• My main role during the shoot was operating the camera and directing some shots. The camera involved was mainly tracking shots as we wanted constant movement in the scene, to create unease. 
• I also helped dress up the set and position lights where they needed to be, this was a very tedious task. 
• Before the shoot, I prepared a script as there is quite a lot of dialogue in our opening. 

Use of Storyboard

• Our storyboard helped us effectively plan the shots we needed and how we expected them to look. This prevented us from going to the location trying to find shots that worked. 
• However, we decided to add frames and shots that weren't in our storyboard, as we got to the location and tried to experiment with different framing. This was not a problem as it gave us a wider range of shots to use.

An over-the-shoulder shot from our shoot

What Worked Well

• On location, we thought that the lighting would be too dark, but on reviewing the footage, lighting was one of the things that came out really well in our film. The lighting was very low-key that gave an eerie feel to the film.
• Particular shots worked well in our shoot. Most notably was the over the shoulder shots. These shots worked well because it positioned the audience as part of the conversation, creating a sense of immediacy.
• We believe that camera movement was a good point from our shoot. We place one piece of track behind each of our cast, and slowly moved the camera across to the other side during the scene. We felt this technique was really effective. This allows us to get away with any breaks in the 180 degree rule, as the camera is constantly moving. 

  

  A view of the set up we used

  

  An example of how we lit the shot

What Didn't Work Well

Some footage came out quite grainy

• A challenge we faced when shooting was creating the right lighting to make the footage as clear as possible without making the lighting too bright. Because of this, our footage came out slightly grainy, however it is not a major problem.
• Another challenge we faced was timing. As Louise, was in a rush to get away, we rushed a few scenes that we could have taken more time on. This means some scenes may be slightly poor, however we will take timing into consideration next time.

  

  An idea for different lighting to make the footage clearer

Experience

• In our next shoot we will try to work out timing better so we can have a clear plan of when we will start and finish shooting.
• We will try more variety of shots as we need more technical excellence. This includes more close ups and trying to make the audience feel more of a part of the conversation.

BJ: Analysis of Title Sequence - Halt and Catch Fire (Cantwell, 2014)

Order of Titles

• 0:00-0:01 - "AMC Presents"
• 0:01-0:03 - "Lee Pace"
• 0:04-0:06 - "Scoot McNairy"
• 0:07-0:09 - "Mackenzie Davis"
• 0:11-0:13 - "Kerry Bishé"
• 0:13-0:15 - "Toby Huss"
• 0:15-0:16 - "David Wilson Barnes"
• 0:17-0:19 - "Executive Producers Mark Johnson Melissa Bernstein"
• 0:17-0:19 - "Executive Producer Johnathan Lisco"
• 0:23-0:27 - "Halt and Catch Fire"
• 0:27-0:30 - "Created By Christopher Cantwell & Christopher C.Rogers"

Typography

The font in this opening sequence is very simple, with white writing on a red background. The red background has connotations of horror however the white writing does not. The white writing, however, makes it stand out on the screen. The titles are constantly moving around the screen in this sequence. This means the attention of the viewer is constantly being shifted from one place to another, keeping them alert and on their toes. This also creates a sense of the unexpected as you don't know where it is going to appear next. The simple font has connotations of an older time, which links in with the fact that "Halt and Catch Fire" is a period drama set in the 1980's. The animation of the titles follows the camera movement of the background. For example, if the camera is zooming out, the titles will have the illusion of zooming out as well. This is clever as it feels like the titles are a real part of the scene. As for the order of titles, the actors are shown first, and then the producers are shown next, and finally the creators are shown last. This is because the creators are the most important people so they go last, meaning the audience knows their name best.

Links Between Text, Visuals and Content

This opening gives us the feel of a drama. This is because the titles are very simple and classy, giving us no indication that it is any other genre. We also get the feeling that it is a period drama because of the titles. They are not too modern so do not give off the impression that the show is set in the present. The show is created by an American company named "AMC". This is not a huge company so the titles could be indicative of that.

Links to Production

This title sequence could be influential in our final production because of the simplicity and classiness of it. We especially would like to emulate the positioning of the titles as it creates a sense of unease and unexpectedness. However, these titles are not specifically indicative of horror, so we may have to think of ways to make it more horrific.

FC: Analysis of Title Sequence - True Detective (Fukunaga, 2014)

Durations and Orders of Titles:
True detective has a very artistic title sequence that includes elements similar to our coursework in terms of the involvement of detectives in the plot. Because of this I thought True Detectives title sequence would be a good one to look at.

The Titles that are featured:
0:03-0:05 - "Woody Harrelson Mathew McConaughey"
0:05-0:07 - "Michelle Monaghan"
0:07-0:09 - "Michael Potts"
0:09-0:11 - "Tory Kittles"
0:14-0:16 - "Casting by Alexa L. Fogel, CSA"
0:18-0:20 - "Music by T Bone Burnett"
0:24-0:26 - "Costume Designer Jenny Eagan"
0:28-0:30 - "Editor Alex Hall"
0:32-0:34 - "Production Designer Alex Digerlando"
0:42-0:44 - "Director of Photography Adam Arkapaw"
0:48-0:50 - "Co-Producer Jessica Levin"
0:52-0:54 - "Producer Carol Cuddy"
0:55-0:57 - "Executive producers Steve Golin Richard Brown"
0:58-1:00 - "Executive producer Woody Harrelson"
1:03-1:05 - "Executive producer Mathew McConaughey"
1:08-1:10 - "Executive producer Scott Stephens"
1:12-1:14 - "Executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga"
1:18-1:20 - "Executive producer Nic Pizzolatto"
1:21-1:24 - "True Detective"
1:25-1:27 - "Created by Nic Pizzolatto"
1:27-1:29 - "Written by Nic Pizzolatto"
1:29-1:30 - "Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga"

Typography:

• The Titles flick between black and white depending on the background. 
• The Font is very clear and stencilled which makes it bold and stands out against the background.
• the animation and editing in the title sequence is very clever and the words are situated on various corners of the screen depending on what is going on in the rest of the shot.
• Nearly all the shots stay on the screen for 2 seconds and they either move or retreat backwards again depending on what else is happening on the screen.

• The other all title design is very impressive with various landscapes and human features intricately fading in and out in between each other.
• The title of "True Detective" is all in capitals in a red ember like font which stands out against the background. The program is set in Louisiana and the font choice has connotations which show this. The images that appear on the screen also show pretty standard images of classic Southern USA with isolated power plants and such.
• most words are Block capital with the persons name appearing larger then there function. For example "executive producer" will be in smaller text than "Woody Harrelson" 

What has this Intro taught me?:

• The piece has been good because it adequately shows how titles can be embedded to suit the action on screen which will be the main focus in our coursework.
• It also shows how the text can be related the main themes of the piece.
• its also show the relation ship between visuals and titles which will be vital for our final piece.

How can we use these ideas in our production?:

• I think the way in which the text on screen adapted around the surroundings was really useful to see and I also think it can be a useful resource that we can utilise in our production.
• the first shot in our production heavily involves the use of text showing date and time, because of this we must look at clips with similar themes like true detective to a certain extent because this will help us to shape our production.
• we also want our titles to be expressive but not overly bold to the point where they take the attention off of the on screen antics.

OH: Analysis of Title Sequence - The Secret In Their Eyes (Campanella, 2009)

Order of Titles - 

• 0:05-0:08 : Sony Pictures Classics presents
• 0:09-0:11 : a Canal+España production
• 0:13-0:17 : directed by Juan Jose Campanella
• 0:17-0:20 : origional music by Frederico Jusid & Emilio Kauderer
• 0:21-0:23 : Pablo Rago
• 0:23-0:24 : Soledad Villamil
• 0:24-0:25 : Ricardo Darín
• 0:32-0:38 : The Secret In Their Eyes
• 0:38-0:43 : The Secret In Their Eyes

There are many stereotypical connotations attached with the horror genre such as a red back ground to relate to blood or the titles jittering to give a sense of unease about the scene. However i decided to choose the titles shown in 'The Secret in Their Eyes' because they have a very basic nature to them, even though this film isn't a horror, it has given me some good ideas for our titles as they're static in the shot with relatively simple typography, however whats special about Campanella's use is that he uses other signifiers to show where the audience should be focusing their eyes on which title etc. Not only this but Campanella doesn't simply show each title up in a orderly fashion however chooses to show certain names up for shorter periods of time, for example from 0:21 to 0:25 the names of the key actors are shown up one after the other in quick succession which is useful for the audience to understand what the actual names are, however aren't given as much time as 'Sony Pictures' as they aren't as vital to the film.

The simple nature of the titles in the shots gives a sophisticated nature to the film ahead, as well as this all of the titles are white set onto a blank background which allows them to be read easily for the audience, enforcing a simple nature to the titles, as if the director wants to simply get them out of the way to continue with the film.

Personally, i believe the idea of taking time out to put blank shots into our intro to show titles would be a good idea allowing our production to look more sophisticated and professional, eliminating the task of trying to colour match/ contrast our titles to the backdrop.  

However these titles are the product of a thriller, so to possibly add a horror genre feel to them we could centre them to break the rule of thirds. Not only this but up the tempo of titles to create unease as the audience is made to focus onto the titles in order to read them fast enough, which we could follow with a jump scare either visually or auditory . 

Group Title Font Research and Placement

For our title we want to use some kind of inventive text that relates both to our chosen horror sub genre as well the on screen content.
Here are some examples that we are currently finding useful and that give us ideas for our own font choice:

I like the Sin city (Tarantino, Rodriguez and Miller, 2005) text because it adds the animated element of having features of the title changing. the shot starts with the words sin city made out of alit up city from above with a black back round. this then fills up with red, possibly blood which has horror connotations, until the city fades away. I also like it specifically because it keeps with overall style of the movie which is what we are trying to do with our title and font.

Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie, 2009) also has a groovy font. It has a Victorian theme and looks like its been written with a feather quill. I think this is pretty useful because it has a kind of Gothic feel with a dirty parchment background and we could use a similar font and background for our project.

Another nice use of font is 300 (Snyder, 2009). It has bloody and violent connotations which we would like to include in our final font choice. The editing of the font is clever and if we could do this then it might count as technical excellence.

Shot placement:
Our production has quite a lot of dialogue which the titles will have to feature around. This might be difficult because we don't want to take attention off of the dialogue with intrusive titles. Because of this we have looked at some other title sequences that do similar things to what we are trying to do.
Skyfall (Mendes, 2013) is a good example of how on screen text can be included in a way which doesn't detract from what's happening on the screen.

 This first screen shot shows large central text of the main actors name. The quick fade in and out doesn't take much attention away from the action even though its one of the most important titles in the sequence.



This second screen shot shows how some of the other titles are shown quite nonchalantly. I think this is useful in relation to our production because the Skyfall title sequence is very impressive visually and features the main song for the film so the creators obviously wanted the text to be subtle which is some thing we also want to do for our sequence.

Group: Call Sheet and Risk Assessment

Below is the call sheet and risk assessment for our shoot. Creating a call sheet is important because it allows you to make crucial decisions that will aid your understanding of what you will shoot. The shot list is helpful as it means you will go to a shoot not knowing what you are going to shoot, and settles your mind as you will not be panicking about what to shoot. 

Risk assessments are important as it will help you prevent injuries to your crew, meaning that no one will have anything to worry about on location. It also highlights any potential dangers to the equipment which means that your equipment will not get damaged during filming.

Group: Audience Research

Purpose
From the questionnaires we aimed to discover:

• what features our core audience would find more effective in a horror film.
• what aspects of our concept they would find most appropriate and how we could improve on certain aspects to make them better.
• what are the audiences preferences in horror films, what kind of weapon/genre they prefer or find most effective.
• we wanted to find out what they would look for in an antagonist so that we could shape our character around there answers.

Methodology

How we carried out our questionnaires:

• we aimed to supply the candidates with a large amount of different question types so that we could interpret and represent our findings in different ways.
• We questioned the participants about what weapons they like to see used in horror films first of all because this would help us to gauge whether they liked to see gore in films.
• The classic "circle the one you like most" method was used for the next question. we did this because we wanted to find out what kind of sub genre our core audience preferred.
• We made this question simple because we needed clear results and felt that this type of answering technique would be very simple and understandable.
• Our antagonist was undecided at this point so we asked what the audience looked for in terms of personality in an antagonist. we used a quantitative question because we felt as if it would be better to have statistics we could relate back to when deciding what traits our antagonist should represent.
• Music could be quite important in our horror opening so we asked how important music is from a scale of very to not important.

Results

From the 15 people we asked to fill out the survey, the majority were male and teenagers. It was important to ask teenagers because the core audience who watch horror films are 15-24, so this gave us a good idea of what they want to see in a horror opening. We got a very mixed bunch of results which gives us a lot to think about when shooting.


A filled out copy of our questionnaire

Question 1:

The first asked the participant to indicate with a number from 1-5 what their preferred weapon of choice is in horror. From our results, we found that most people put a number 1 for pistol. However, this is not accurate as we would need to add up the score for each weapon and see which one got the lowest score overall. After doing this the results were:

• Pistol-47
• Knife-46
• Shotgun-48
• Bare Hands-41
• Axe-48

From these results we can see that our chosen participants rated bare hands highest overall.

Question 2:

In this question we asked the participant to circle their favourite horror sub-genre. The choices we gave them were Slasher, Psychological, Thriller and Zombie. The results were:

• Slasher 4
• Psychological 5
• Zombie 2
• Thriller 4

The results show that the most popular sub-genre was psychological.

Question 3:

The results are show below:

From the results we can see there was a tie between important and not important. This is a problem as they are complete opposites meaning that our target audience is split over what they want.

Question 4:

We asked our audience to indicate on a scale from 1-7 to indicate their preferred characteristic of a horror antagonist. On one end of the scale at number one was psychopathic and on the other end at seven was sane. The results are shown below:

From the table we can see that most people chose number 1. This means our audience would like to see a completely psychopathic antagonist rather than one that is fairly sane.

Question 5:

Our next question was how important is music in a horror opening. Again the participant had to circle their preferred choice. The options were very important, slightly important, important and not important. The results were as follows:

• Very important 8
• Important 5
• Slightly important 0
• Not important 3

From the results we can tell that having music in our opening is vital to creating the right mood or atmosphere.

Question 6:

In this question, we asked an open question to our participants. We asked them to describe what music best fits the horror genre. The general consensus with the results was that it would have to build up to something creating a scary atmosphere. This would mean any music involving crescendos would be ideal for our horror opening.

Question 7:

This question simply asked what gender antagonist people preferred. The results were:

• Male 11
• Female 4

The majority preferred a male antagonist, which means in our horror opening we will be challenging the dominant view of what gender antagonist it should be.

Evaluation

Throughout the questionnaires there are some questions which support our ideas and views for the production, however some do not. For example, in question 1 the data shows that the most popular weapon in the clip would be bare hands, which supports our original ideas. As well as question one, question two implies that our census are the target audience as they describe their favourite sub-genre of horror as psychological horror, which is what we're aiming for showing us that the data is all valid. However not all the data is that valid because the ones who answered the questions might have been rushing it or just answering the questions they saw first depending on the layout of the question not considering the other possible answers of the question which could have swayed their answers the other way giving us completely different results. All of these could have changed the potential results, however as a group we are happy with our results from the target audience as they support our ideas. Lets get filming!

Location Recce and Pictures

Our friend Andrew has kindly allowed us to use a workshop that he owns near his house for our horror opening. We will use this warehouse as the setting for our police interrogation as it gives a corrupt feel to the police operation and creates a better atmosphere for horror.

Obviously we will need to clear out the workshop a bit to clear a space but we feel this is an ideal location for us to film.

Risk Assessment:

• There are a lot of shelves stacked with a lot of dangerous tools which could fall over if knocked so we will have to be careful.
• Also, a lot of tools are just lying around so we may have to make sure that they are all put safely away so no one gets hurt during filming.
• When we are filming it may be dark so it will be easy to trip and walk into things. This could cause injuries to the cast and crew.
  

Group: Re-think About the Time Period

Originally we were set on setting our interrogation in the 1960's with iconic costume and hair style to stand out from the other groups. However after talks with the subject teachers its clear that this style would be too hard to establish in terms of the pricing of the props to create this time period. Not only this but we don't have any possible cast to fit the appropriate character portfolio, giving us no choice but to change the time frame.