Pictures and videos

Storyboard

Film company logo

Animation

Newspaper

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3

Poster 4

Poster for Hope

Final poster

Magazine review page

Final Short Film

First opening attempt

Second opening attempt

Nothing/Hope first draft

EVALUATION

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONAL OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Our media coursework isn't great, however we have tried to keep to original conventions of a horror/thriller short film. The narrative of our film follows Torodov's 5 Stages loosely however, we can apply this theory to our film. Our film, like all horror/thriller films return to equilibrium therefore theaudience is left satisifed. We have also explored voyeurism with our film as it is based around a group of teenagers watching a horror movie and they become a part of a horror/thriller film.

Our review page however challenge simple conventions as we usually would not find this sort of articles in Empire. This product and our main task links due to the use of font as the font we have used is seen during the titles and is the font used as the headings in the review page. The layout also challenges conventions of a review article as the layout is in the style of someone writing, and sticking the pictures down with sticky tape. This what makes the review page unique as it is completely different from existing articels however some of the features can be seen between existing film reviews and ours. For example, the layout of the articles themselves are based upon reviews I researched on Empire's magazine where it tells you the information and how many stars that was awarded plus the columing of plot; review and verdict sections. The style that we have written them in are also seen in existing media products as they are quite informal with a few jokes however with some honesty; for example the quality in some places is poor.

The movie poster on the other had, is very conventional to existing movie posters. Using Eagle Eye's film poster as a refrence and to others such as Deception, Disturbia and The Happening; there is a divide within our poster which is our newspaper. Plus, with the other relevenant information such as date released, actors/esses etc, the poster's authenticity is very close to existing products. We have placed our film's company identity also as the audience can make reference to who made it and that the release date and tagline informs the audience what genre the film is immediately.

However, unlike horror/thriller films the lighting is quite bright. This is due to essentially time constraints as we would have filmed it at night during the winter season however due to unforseenable winter showers and unreliable people this was not achieved. In addition, the scene where Jack describes Alexander Manson, we had to brighten that section becasue it was not visible. This can challenge conventions of existing products as the majority of horror/thriller movies use very little lighting and have a dark colour pallette whilst ours is quite bright and artificual. Also, you do not see any blood or killing, which Paul was quite dissappointed with but needless to say this would not have worked because of the non-existant budget. It would have been very obvious and ruin the whole film.

Like all films, a score was made for our film which we tried and use to create tension at specific points in the film. The music was very slow to prolong the tension further and with the effects of thunder and lighting to make it that little bit more scary.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLERY TEXTS?
Looking at the products we have created as a set, they do work well however certain elements could have been better. The filiming was limited not just due to time constraints but with the equipment too as to film it better; we needed to film it handheld with the cost of a shakey production. Also, without any lighting packs, we could not afford to turn the lights off in the lving room as nothing would be seen and the footage would have to be restored. On the contray, if we filmed when we were supposed to a better outcome might have been achieved.

Although, as a set they all link which is vital. The narrative is seen through the movie poster as the audience can draw to the conclusion that the disruption to equilbrium is due to a stalker which might not be human due to the lighting used. The font used in the opening titles is seen in the movie poster as the headings. As all of the film mentioned in the review are horrors, the audience can conclude that this magazine along with Dark Circle are ones that specifically direct their attention to this genre. This therefore, might be able to go into the mainstream as a potential opening in the market might be seen. The setbacks of time and no actors/resses really cost us as there were no amount of time to sufficnetly make ammendments to any of the products as the film was our first and final cut; the review page was the first draft as it couldn't be done without seeing what the film looked like and the movie poster was the first idea for this cast. This would be something that I would take into account if I had the opportunity to redo the project or when I start a new one.

If we were to settle with Hope, the two products of the film and the psoter would have worked well together also. The tagline for this film would have been mentioned at the end of the movie and the audience feels that the character does have hope. Our symbol for this film would have been the dove, to represent a belief that you can lose everything important to you however have hope left to restore everything.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
The audience feedback that we got shared the same criticism that the sound was poor. Indeed it was however, this would have been one thing that we would have rectified if we had more time. Overall, the feedback was postive and that they enjoyed the film. They like the quality of the picture, the music and more importantly the acting. They liked the joke about the Ring and found it funny. Although, I don't think that the film was well liked as on YouTube there is not a lot of comments posted as we had placed it onto Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and somebody did give it a thumbs down.

HOW HAVE YOU USED/DEVELOPED YOUR SKILLS USING DIGITAL MEDIA IN COMPLETING YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND TWO AUXILARY PRODUCTS?
My short film main synopsis is based around voyeurism, which the characters find themselves on the front page of the following day’s newspaper which informs them that they are dead. Digital technology was therefore highly used to create the newspaper which features in our film. Adobe Photoshop, an industry standard package was used to create a realistic Sun newspaper which we used several front pages of the national newspaper to give ours the authenticity needed. Without this package, the newspaper would have been of a poor quality and would not have the effect we were looking for; to make the audience and the characters cringe at the fact they are on the front of a newspaper dead.


The quality of camcorders in the last decade has dramatically changed and we were lucky enough to have filmed our film with Flip HD cameras which gave us the opportunity to film in high definition. The advantages of these cameras are that they are small and lightweight which allowed us to easily transport and to use in the streets for our alternative idea and at parties for the original opening for our film. The clips are first recorded in high definition and more importantly the clips are stored digitally, which the user can pull out the USB stick and plug it into a computer to upload their footage. This saves an immense amount of time and the clips are safely located.


We were fortunate enough to edit our films on Macs and use Final Cut Pro, a highly professional standard piece of software. The benefits of this software was apart from being professional standard, it allows far more editing options than Windows Movie Maker. After learning how to use the program, it became very easy and is good practice to learn how to use the software for later projects.


Digital technology came very important in keeping a record of the progress we were making. Using a website called blogger.com; it was very easy in blogging what happened and being published it allowed for our target audience to see the progress. It is also beneficial as being on the World Wide Web, it is easily located and being in a digital format, there is no fear of losing it unlike if it was hand-written.


Like the newspaper, the film poster, the review page and our company’s logo were made using computing software. The logo was made on PowerPoint to create the animation whilst the design was created in Photoshop; like the movie poster and review page. A font was downloaded to create the titles in the film and for our review page to create the mood we want and without the internet that would have not been possible.



Finally, we were able to distribute our film on the internet by placing it onto Youtube. Placing it on the website can allow us to get vital feedback and for the film to reach its target audience. Placing it on the internet is very simple and today’s society watches millions of videos uploaded on the website.


The advancements in digital technology have enabled me to create all of this which the quality is far superior for amateur film makers in the past. The easiness, the cost-cutting, the quality has enabled us to create synopsis which might not have been possible for amateur film makers to make in the past. That’s why digital technology was vitally important in our coursework.

FILM

Here is the link to our film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QsWyK1R4fc

Diary

WASTE!
For our first media film project, we had to make a 2 minute film without any editing entitled 'Waste'. How we interpreted this was that we wanted to follow a piece of rubbish blowing in the wind, however, what we thought of was extremely hard to get in on film. Therefore, we actually had only 30 seconds of film rather than the 2 minutes we suppose to have. I asked my media teacher for the tape and I decided then to actually work out how to use editing software. From our 30 seconds I cut it down to 12 seconds and it took me over an hour! But at least I know how to use an editing software if I am the editor for our film.





STORYBOARD
Storyboarding has an important role while making a film. It has to tell what is happening within a scene and more importantly tells the director and producers what specific type of shots are used within that scene. The way in which the directors and producers can tell what type of shot is being used is with specific arrows. For example, arrows coming out of each corner of the picture tells us that this is a polly to follow the actor etc, and an arrow within the picture shows the direction of the actor etc, is going in. What is also very important whilst storyboarding is that the picture has to show what exactly is within the scene. This is actually quite challenging because you have to draw in the box what is going to be one screen and used the correct arrows to label the shot. It has to be extremely detailed therefore for the 5 minute film that I'm making, there is going to be a lot of boxes in the storyboard!

GUN
For our first task to learn how to storyboard, we were given a list of titles for a film and we had to storyboard our idea. We chose the title 'Gun' and our concept of our film was that a child loves his western outfit and loves to play with his toy gun. After annoying his mum with his constant noise, she confiscated his toy gun and hid it in the bedroom. Her son, secretly goes and searches his parents' bedroom and finds a gun, however it is his father's loaded gun, not his toy gun. Unknowing this fact, he goes and accidentally kills his family and the people in the street. We are debating whether or not to actually use this idea for our 5 minute film.

TRANSCRIPT
This was something that I completely didn't know that existed in making a film. We all know that there is a script which has the dialogue written for the actors and actresses, a transcript is a script which tells how the camera is moved, and what shots are going to be used for a particular scene. This was very hard to do, because you have to try and imagine how the scene will be composed, and then how you will exit a scene and enter the next. Something else which also links to this was camera setup. This is just common sense really; if you are to shoot a mid-close up shot you will shoot all of the mid-close up shots together. This is the first camera setup, basically a camera setup is the number of cameras to shoot a scene with different point of views and then this setup can be used again to shoot a different scene using the same cameras.

FILMS
Recently, I have watched Malcolm X and re-watched Crash. What I particularly liked about Malcolm X was the opening titles. The opening titles saw the American flag in an extreme close-up gradually zoomed out, cutting to real life documentary showing the appalling treatment Black Americans withstand. The American flag, then catches fire and gradually starts to burn. When, the flag is nearly burned completely, an 'X' is formed which is extremely symbolic and also represents Malcolm's insulting behaviour towards Americans because of how he was treated.This also shows his beliefs on the Civil Rights Movement Crash was a brilliant film and highlights the racial issues in America. This film didn't use any special or interesting camera shots, mainly I think the plot sold the film so there was no need for these fancy stuff. By looking at these two films, it has helped me to understand the importance of a good plot and how to make the film Paul and I are going to make, more interesting.

Paul and I have come up with the idea that to hold auditions for the casting of our film, when a first draft of the script has been produced. I think if this is possible, it would be a good idea as Paul and I will know the right people are playing the right character. It also helps us because the quality of acting maybe better as proper actors/actresses or people fond of drama may be interested in taking part.

AUDITIONS!
Paul and I have come up with the idea that to hold auditions for the casting of our film, when a first draft of the script has been produced. I think if this is possible, it would be a good idea as Paul and I will know the right people are playing the right character. It also helps us because the quality of acting maybe better as proper actors/actresses or people fond of drama may be interested in taking part.

NEW IDEA FOR SHORT FILM
For this idea it will be a mix of the idea of 'Gun' and the 2 short films we have seen: 'Spin' and 'Monster'. A group of teenagers have a party, and are having a good time, when one of the teens tells the others a tale about a young boy who accidentally kills his parents, then goes and lives in an orphanage and dies a lonely child. The group then contact the lost child via a wigi board and he then comes and terrorises the group one-by-one. The main female character is strikingly similar to the dead boy's mother, so the ghost doesn't harm her. The group are aware of this and come up with the conclusion that he thinks she must be his mother so she pretends to be his mother and tells him off. He then never returns.

DIGITAL STORYBOARDING
For the script, we were transcripting, we chose a section out of the script to actually storyboard using photography. We took 14 shots to create about I would say which will run to be 20 seconds. We then placed them onto a PowerPoint to run a digital storyboard.

ATONEMENT
Recently I have just watched Atonement and I couldn't believe how good the film actually was! What I liked the most was how you would see an event in the eyes of the little girl (Kiera's little sister), then you would see the whole event again but in the eyes of James and Kiera and actually see what had happened because she misinterpreted everything. The twist at the end was also very good and something that you wouldn't expect if you haven't read the book. The whole last hour of film never actually happened and I thought that was very clever as the little sister, now is an elderly lady, wrote this whole event as an autobiographical novel and James died in the war (when you see the ending you know where in the film where James died) and soon after Kiera dies when the tube station she was hiding got flooded due to a bomb hitting a water pipe. It was very sad because the little sister never had the chance to confront her big sister about what she had done.

SURVEY
To find out what the audiences of short films like, I have created an online survey to find out all of the relevant information. I would be really grateful if you follow this link and take part of my research.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=dAPY_2bUVHyVmrHDHiSw7GBQ_3d_3d

CONTINUITY AND CONTINUITY ERRORS
Continuity is very important in a film. Sometimes it is apparent however the little pieces of detail are missed but someone will find them. Even blockbuster movies have continuity errors. Here is a link on YouTube to show the continuity errors in The Matrix. The guy's English is not very clear however you can work out what he is saying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ0v5H3Uctw

FILM TREATMENT
I have just completed the film treatment for our film. It describes the characters, locations and has a simple overview of the plot. Then it shows what happens scene by scene. The purpose of the Treatment is to present your ideas to a film company and then they theoretically can make your film. It was really difficult to come up with characters and give enough detail about appearance, personality and how they fit in with the others.

TRAPPED!
This is the name of the film that Paul and I are going to make and the plot is: It’s the early hours of the morning, the party has just finished and the last guest is leaving. Matt, Jessica and Mitch have stayed to help Jessica clean up the mess in the living room before Sarah’s parents return home from their holiday. Matt and Sarah, who are dating, are not very helpful tiding up and are more interesting making out on the sofa. Annoyed with the consistent making-out, Jessica tries to rip them apart and shouts at them trying to get to them help her and Mitch tidy up. To get all of them motivated, Sarah tells a story about a little boy who kills his parents and dies in an orphanage. Unaware of telling this story, the group has contacted with him and he locks them in the house and haunts them one-by-one. Now, they have to survive.

CHARACTERS
Here are the descriptions of the characters that will appear in our film that Paul and I are going to make:


THE CHILD.
The Child is a character that is very lonely, depressed and has been badly treated. The prologue of the story is that he killed his parents and younger brother and sister when his mother confiscates his toy gun, one summer afternoon as she is extremely annoyed with the noise. She takes his toy gun off of him and locks it away in the parents’ bedroom. When his mother isn’t looking, he goes into his parents’ bedroom and searches for his toy gun that she has hid from him. On his search, his finds a gun however, he finds his father’s loaded gun not his toy gun. He then continues to play his game and shoots his family. He dies soon after in an orphanage, where he is badly treated. His appearance will be a common Western outfit and his face will be unseen as his hat will be in a position where his face will be in shadow. The only part of his face that will be visible will be his mouth and chin. He will not speak at all. He is fairly an unknown character apart from the prologue Sarah Hartley tells the rest of the group. He is around 7-years-old, and is about 3’8 – 3’10.


SARAH HARTLEY.
Sarah Hartley is the one who tells the story of ‘The Child’ to the rest of the group. She is someone who likes to bitch a lot and is very high maintenance. She thinks very highly of herself and is highly influenced with American/Celebrity lifestyle. She also mimics the American accent and phrases. She is currently dating Matt Forde who is also at the party. She is 17-years-old and is about 5’7. She is wearing a pair of black skinny jeans with a low-cut red short sleeve top, a little clutch bag and a pair of high heels. She is wearing a lot of make-up with smeared bright red lipstick, blue eye shadow and bright pink cheeks and has a lot of ‘fake tan’ on. Her hair is long and brown and her eyes are hazel. She lives on an expensive estate and is ‘very well to do’. Even though she is a character, who likes to bitch etc, she can be very snobbish sometimes and look down on people.


MATT FORDE.
Matt Forde is extremely active and is one of those guys that all of the girls at college want to date. He is the captain of the school’s football team and is on his way getting a football scholarship for Chelsea FC. He is quite tall, about 5’10 – 6’, he is 17- years-old and has a very stylish hair sprayed/gelled hairstyle, quite common for footballers. He is not muscular, however has defined biceps and chest etc. His hair is brown/blonde and his eyes are green/blue. He is wearing a stylish pair of blue jeans, a pair of converses and a simple green polo/T-shirt. He has some simple jewellery with a few rings and a necklace and a pink wrist-band and a watch on the opposite wrist. He is currently dating Sarah Hartley.


JESSICA-MARIE CURREN.
She is the host for the party and is the main character out of the four main characters. She believes that she doesn’t really fit in with the group because she does have some self-esteem problems and tries to copy Sarah a lot to try and fit in. She is occasionally bullied by Sarah and the purpose of the party was to match Sarah’s party that happened a few weeks before. Everyone enjoyed Jessica’s part however when Sarah has Jessica alone, she does rub it in her face that her party didn’t out do hers at all. She is extremely timid, shy and who is about 5’ – 5’3 and is 16-years-old. Her appearance is very neutral and she doesn’t wear a lot of make-up. She fancies Matt, like all girls do, however, is extremely shy and tries to avoid the whole situation. She is wearing a simple pair of black jeans, which are slightly baggy and a simple purple T-shirt which also a bit baggy and black trainers. She has extremely long hair which she ties up with a hair band. Her hair is quite dark and has brown eyes.


MITCH.
All of his mates refer him as Mitch and that is what he is known as. He is interested in computers and computer games and when he starts to go in ‘computer geek’ mode, his friends does find that quite annoying, however funny at the same time as they are not interested at all. He is very close towards Jessica, as they have been friends from a very young age. She has told him previously she likes Matt, however Mitch likes Jessica. Unlike Jessica though, he is outspoken, positive and is the joker of the group. He has told Jessica his feelings towards her however she is confident that nothing will happen between them, only friendship. He is wearing, three-quarter length shorts, a shirt, with the sleeves rolled up with the top buttons opened. He is about 5’6 – 5’8 and is 16-years-old. His hair is quite short and curly. He also wears a pair of glasses and a string necklace.

DRY CLEAN ONLY - SHORT FILM
Dry Clean Only was probably the best short film that I have seen so far! It was about a couple who enters a dry cleaners and bribe the teenage worker to dry clean their clothes as they were covered in blood. About half way in or so, the film changes into one of those documentary programmes on 'How It's Made' and it tells the audience that the workers at dry cleaners shouldn't ask their customers any questions. It then had a little montage of clips of a women obviously cheating as she wants a husband's pile and boyfriend pile; a guy who lost a packet of drugs and a guy who wants to lose the stain but keep the smell? Overall it was fantastic!

SCRIPTING
The script that I wrote was finished a couple of weeks ago and probably is going to be re-drafted several times before finally shooting our film. This was the first time I actually wrote a script properly and with the help of Lee, showed me the conventions of the layout of the script. I used the treatment that I previously wrote as the main body to form the script. Paul will also do his own version because I think dialogue was really hard to come up with. In my opinion, the dialogue I came up with was poor.

BACK AT COLLEGE!
This week, we started college and on Monday, Paul and I were rethinking of what to do. Miss said that 'The Child' was too complicated and the whole mother idea was too similar to 'The Ring'. So after hard rethinking, it became apparent that using Miss's idea of someone haunts' used to live in the house sort thing. Which is a typical sort of storyline. The idea to replace 'The Child' now is that 100 years ago or so a man killed his family and then hanged himself afterwards. Why? No- one knows however when the police came they noticed whilst looking at the photographs they took, only shadow like figures appeared. Then, we had to come up with a name for this character and that took some time. Eventually we came up with the name 'Alexander Manson' with a little bit of help and now this is the new title for our film.

RE-DRAFT OF TREATMENT
Film - Headline. Jessica ‘planned’ to host a private party with her good and close friends Sarah and Matt, who are dating and Mitch, her friend since the age of 3. However, Jessica didn’t close the invites via Facebook and her whole school came knocking. A huge group of kids from the school are cramped into the living room and you have groups dancing, making-out and going up stairs to the bedrooms. The music is very loud and Sarah and Matt are on the couch making out. Mitch tries to impress the girls with his cool dance moves however more like your embarrassing dad freestyle sort of moves are. It’s now the early hours of the morning and the party has finished. Even though Jessica is appalled at the state of the house she politely thanks the last person to leave for coming and closes the door. She returns back into the living and looking at the mess – empty bottles of beer, graffiti on the mirror, her mother’s favourite vase smashed on the floor etc. Matt and Sarah are still on the couch making-out whilst Mitch helps to clear the mess before Jessica’s parents return from the holiday as they are due in a couple of hours. Jessica stares at the two of them making out, and Matt opens one eye and looks towards Jessica, smirks whilst pausing for air and winks then continues making-out. In rage, (as Jessica fancies Matt), she throws down a newspaper that she was about to throw away back down, which the force opens the newspaper to show the entire front page; orders Matt and Jessica to help her and Mitch clean up. Sarah and Matt then get up and in the process Sarah has a bitch about Jessica for all to her hear. The date on the newspaper which Jessica threw down was dated for tomorrow. As they all clean, Sarah decides to tell a little folk about Alexander Manson, which everyone has heard except Jessica. Jessica insists that Sarah should continue and then Sarah obliges in doing so. Alexander Manson was an ordinary man who lived in Jessica’s house 100 years ago or so and one night he killed his wife and children then hanged himself. When the police came the following day, they were horrified in what they saw and what baffled the police was when they took pictures of the deceased, only shadow like figures appear on the photographs. At that time some gags are made. Lights start to flicker. Noises can be heard upstairs all muffled. All panic. Looking up and around and a boy and a girl come into sight laughing and being flirty. They leave still giggling. Sarah returns to the story of Alexander Manson finishing it off that “It’s 100 years this very night he went on his rampage and it was said on the 100th anniversary of his death; he will again.” The lights flicker again however this time the bulbs blow. You can hear Jessica screaming and the others speaking. Then, the TV suddenly turns on and a strange glowing ball, like a sun plays on the screen. All watch with bedazzlement. Then, it mysteriously turns itself back off. The lights turn themselves on and Jessica is drawn to the newspaper she threw down when having an argument with Sarah and Matt. She reads the front page’s headline: ‘Group of teenagers murdered at house party’ with a school portrait picture of Sarah for the photograph on the newspaper. She screams. End of Film During credits, audio of a news bulletin describing the event: ‘Another bizarre killing occurred, as a group of teenagers where found dead at a house, after a house party late last night. This is the third murder this week where people have been killed in their homes and where there are no apparent signs of struggling, breaking in and like the other two, the police do not belief that this was a suicide. The bodies of the teenagers were found by one of their parents, who returned from holiday in the early hours of the morning. The police still have no suspects. When the neighbours were questioned by the police, no one told them that they heard no noise after the party was finished around 2am. The police will hold a press meeting about these strange killings tomorrow mid-day.

DARK CIRCLE - OUR FILM IDENTITY
Here is our company's name and logo. It was created by sheer chance as Paul was working on an animation piece that will appear in the film, and accidentally created the shape. It fits in pretty well and basically called our company 'Dark Circle' because basic that's what it is.




RE-DRAFT OF SCRIPT
I've just finished completing a 1st draft for our film, using the new ideas plus combining some ideas that Paul had. Paul is now proof reading as well as Miss. Paul will be also creating a shooting script to go along side the first draft of the script.

THE BLACK HOLE - SHORT FILM
A simple short film I've just found about: A sleep deprived office worker finds a Black Hole whilst photocopying late one night Suddenly the possibilities seem endless. Will greed get the better of him?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Un20p1NGuw

WASTE - TAKE 2
Paula and I were given the premilary task of making a short two minute film on waste. This time the idea we decided on was to go around and film how schools waste electricity, food etc. It starts off with a messy playground, then someone (me) walking out of a room and leaving the light on then showing all of the computers left on in an empty classroom. Then we have some interviews in where they describe what they define what waste to be. It finsihes with a scene of a nice clean playground, computers are all switch off and finally me leaving the classroom remembering to turn off the light.

TREATMENT FILNALISED
Headline Jess ‘planned’ to host a private Halloween Eve party with her good and close friends Sarah and Matt, who are dating and Mitch, her friend since the age of 3. However, Jess didn’t close the invites via Facebook and her whole school came knocking. A huge group of kids from the school are cramped into the living room and you have groups dancing, making-out and going up stairs to the bedrooms. The music is very loud and Sarah and Matt are on the couch making out. Mitch tries to impress the girls with his cool dance moves however more like your embarrassing dad freestyle sort of moves at a wedding. It’s now the early hours of the following morning and the party has finished. Even though Jess is appalled at the state of the house she politely thanks the last person to leave for coming and closes the door. She returns back into the living and looking at the mess – empty bottles of beer, graffiti on the mirror, her mother’s favourite vase smashed on the floor etc. Instead of cleaning the house up, as Jess’s parents will be home soon, they decide to gather together and tell ghost stories to get them in the Halloween mood. Jess stares at Matt and Sarah making out. Then, tries and ignores them by looking at a newspaper which is folded up next to her and reads the headline: ‘Four Found Dead after Halloween Party’ which is lying next to her. Matt opens one eye and looks towards Jess and Jess glances back up. Matt smirks at her whilst pausing for air and winks then continues making-out. In a temper tantrum, she insists that they all should start to clean up. Sarah and Matt then stop making out and in the process Sarah has a bitch about Jess for all to her hear. As they all start to clean, Mitch tries and revive the ghost telling and tells the story of the film ‘The Ring’ however everyone suss this out instantly and they all hysterically laugh and they tell him that the film wasn’t even that scary. Matt brings up the news that a few people this week have died mysteriously however everyone tries and ignore this by saying ‘what’s the odd of that ever happening to us?’ Sarah then mentions the name ‘Alexander Manson’, everyone except Jess warn Sarah not to say anymore, that it’s a bad omen, that bad things happen when his name is mentioned. Jess bluntly dares Sarah to tell the story. Sarah doesn’t back down from anyone tell the story. Alexander Manson was an ordinary man who lived in Jess’s house 100 years ago or so and one night he killed his wife and children then hanged himself. When the police came the following day, they were horrified in what they saw and what baffled the police was when they took pictures of the deceased, only shadow like figures appear on the photographs. At that time some gags are made. Lights start to flicker. Noises can be heard upstairs all muffled. All panic. Looking up and around and a boy and a girl come into sight laughing and being flirty. They leave still giggling. Sarah finishes the story in that it was this very minute that it all happened. The room is in complete darkness and a few seconds later they start to flicker again then they come back on half dimmed. They all start to panic and start arguing that Sarah shouldn’t have told the story. Sarah then blames Jess for daring her. The lights start to flicker once more and more noises are heard from upstairs along with muffled voices which become louder and louder. Matt. She reads the front page’s headline again: ‘Four Found Dead after Halloween Party’, then looks at the date; which is for this morning’s issue. Then, a picture of Jess’s house with police tape around it. She then screams. End of Film During credits, audio of a news bulletin describing the event: ‘Another bizarre killing occurred, as a group of teenagers where found dead at a house, after a house party late last night. This is the third murder this week where people have been killed in their homes and where there are no apparent signs of struggling, breaking in and like the other two, the police do not belief that this was a suicide. The bodies of the teenagers were found by one of their parents, who returned from holiday in the early hours of the morning. The police still have no suspects. When the neighbours were questioned by the police, no one told them that they heard no noise after the party was finished around 2am. The police will hold a press meeting about these strange killings tomorrow mid-day.

BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)
The film is about the story of three student filmmakers who went hiking in the Black Hills in Burkittisville, Maryland to film a documentary about a local legend the Blair Witch however they go missing. The audience are aware that their bodies were never found however their film and sound equipment was discovered a year later and this was used as the material to present the audience with. To film the movie, handheld cameras were used which primarily fits in with story line and also helps to create the suspense needed as you have the camera naturally shaking due to movement. ‘Headline’ will be opening with the Halloween party therefore a mixture of handheld cameras and photography will be used to portray that the feeling of a party scene in a maximum of a minute. The handheld camera would properly be under the control of Mitch, this allows the audience to be introduced to the characters as they can interact with the handheld camera. This also enables to give the opening party scene a sense of realism as it will look like actually someone filming what’s going on. Introducing the main characters like this is quick and also helps the audience to recognise the characters immediately as they’ll be staring down the camera whilst interacting with Mitch however gives the impression that the characters are interacting with the audience as well. Snapshots will be used to help speed the process of the party scene as well illustrating teenager behaviour at a party. Like The Blair Witch Project, hand held cameras seem ideal to film this scene to give it a bit more edginess and to help speed up the storyline.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZu1cTg-xUM This is a link to its trailer

SPIN - SHORT FILM
The whole film was based around a party, and the way it was filmed focused on the main characters and using wide shots, panning and cutting to make it more realistic. The kind of actions that was seen in Spin will be used in ‘Headline’ however it probably will be all filmed using handheld cameras to make it a bit more realistic as if someone would then post it on a social networking site. The camera movement was fast as there was panning and a lot of cutting to make the pace of the film really fast just like the pace of a real party. http://shootingpeople.org/watch/film.php?film_id=618 A link to watch the film.

ACTION PLAN
When I was away for a lesson, Paul created our Action Plan, telling what needs to be done and by when. More importantly it tells us who needs to do it. We have decided to film the movie when we break up for half term as it will allow us to find a cast, as I only have one person signed up for it, which isn't looking good. By next Friday, we need to have completed: the treatment, the script, the shooting script and shooting schedule and the digital storyboard.

SHOOTING SCRIPT
Last week, Paul created our shooting script. The initial idea was to do film it all in one weekend however due our scheduling we have to spread the filming over three weeks. We have decided to film during the holiday, so when we come back, we have something to edit when we come back to college (the party scene).

THE MAKING OF...
Last night, I came with the idea of making "A Making of..." documentary. Hopefully, it will turn out pretty well, whilst filiming the movie and edit it together with interviews of me, Paul and the cast, etc.

STORYBOARD AND CHANGES TO STORY
Last week I went to the set which will be used for our film and I took pictures for the storyboard. When I arrived some things wouldn't and couldn't work very well so I had to come up with solutions there to fit the surroundings better. Then, I amended the script to fit the surroundings. An actor, who is now training to be an English/Drama teacher came into one of our lessons and read our updated script at the time. He really liked the idea and thought it was well written. he gave us some pointers using the saying: "Show the audience, don't tell the audience." That was very useful.

MOVIES! THE GAME
Paul came up with the idea to use a video game to create the film. After seeing some videos that were posted on Youtube, they weren't great however we have decided not to use it as Paul tried a demo and it wasn't very good.

FILMING
On Saturday, we started to film our movie and we used a "Flip" HD camera to film with. It's really small and easy to carry. We filmed roughly 5 minutes of the party and different times during the course of the night. We then started to edit the footage down to 30 seconds as that is what we need. We will then at a later stage add in the titles between the shots.

FIRST DRAFT OF MOVIE POSTER
It was a really challenging process in creating a movie poster. We eventually came up with a solution where we are going to have a picture of the stairs looking up to the second floor at a slight angle and position a newspaper on the bottom step. The caption we have decided to use is the release date of the film then "today you die." Paul made a mock up version which looks really cool and what i like it about the most it conveys the whole story which was vital as we couldn't make it ambiguous as it is a ghost story/thriller.

OPENING RESHOOT
We decided to re-shoot the party scene and this time it is much better! This time, there was a much better party atmosphere and filmed about 30 minutes for the 30 secs we have allocated for the final film. During this time, I have spent a lot of my free periods during college editing and cutting the title sequence with it. It is looking much better and now what's left to do is film the rest which should be some time next week. This time, we have got rid of the recording filter and there is a lot more action in this opening and feels like a party.

MUSIC
During my time editing, I started to create music for the film. I used a programme called "Garage Band" which then allowed me to drag existing sounds on its database and then layer it up to create effects. I'll try and finsih this soon and upload it on to my blog. Meanwhile, here is the Cue Sheet I created:


OVERVIEW OF FILM
It’s the end of a Halloween party and some of them stay over to help clean the mess up before the parents return home. During that time, they talk about previous murders that have happened during the week and they think that its virtually impossible what has happened to them and adding that there were no witnesses make it more suspicious. After cleaning, they talk about a man who lived at the very house ages ago and rein act his horrible murders he committed along with his suicide. They later discover a newspaper which has the main story describing their death. During the credits, a news bulletin tells the story of their death.


MUSICAL DIRECTION
The music will be used to build up tension and suspense during certain aspects of the film. Therefore, the tempo and rhythm of the music will be similar to a heartbeat (124bpm) and to build up the tension and suspense, a accelerando of the tempo will be used in creating this, mimicking the heartbeat during tensed times plus then a ritardando to bring the tension back to normal . During this accelerando; some noises in the background will then be looped or be volume swelled (p – fff; ff – pp etc) to make it more creepy and scarier.


INSTRUMENTAL THEMES.
Mixture of electric and acoustic guitar. Violin for singular notes or for the parts where to increase tension (move over to electric guitar if have to). African drums – the authentic sound of the African drums match the natural sound of the heartbeat and is duller than ordinary drums to make it creepier. A heartbeat rhythm to be used for the base of the track. Could even change genres of music from pop/rock to rock to African based music or a mixture including violin (if possible). The sounds that could be looped may not even played on a tuned instrument which it is being played from – makes it creepier along with the fading in and out. The looping sections could also include vocals which could also be looped or fade in and out of other vocal sections. A lot of inspiration for this came from “Waking the Fallen” by Avenged Sevenfold from the album “Waking the Fallen”. Listen to it on Youtube if you don’t understand a particular point, it should help clarify that. I decided to do a separate sheet for this for as you read the cue sheet, what I suggest for possible ideas is what you have already read on this sheet and will make more sense. It would also help when composing the score; you would be able to see areas that I suggested can fit in with certain areas that there will be the score. Sections (include EXACT timings) What characters, ideas, and themes are you going to represent?


00.00 – 00.10 approx.
Company logo before opening titles. The music will be a “taster” of what to be expected of the score. Very Slow tempo will a basic base beat that is calming. A singular note on violin or electric guitar to be played fading in and out with possible other sounds looped over it. A very brassy sort of feel to this particular piece; needs to be bold however slightly distressing for the audience to get a sense of what mood the film will set.


00.10 – 00.40 approx.
This part of the movie will jump from scene to title, scene to title therefore the timing for this section of music needed will be only 10secs approx. Quite similar to what will be used for the company’s logo previously however slightly altered to make it sound different. Possible add the vocals in this section to make it quite eerie. Try to include the phrase: “No-one can touch us” at the end.


1:00 - 1:20 approx.
The focus at this point will be the newspaper as the group are not aware that it is the newspaper that has their death on the front page. Music here will need to show the significance of the newspaper as we gradually zooms in (match the zoom with an accelerando of the tempo? Volume swells? Etc) As then the headline comes visual; the music will need to be quite like old horror movies where they see the monster for the first time and then they scream. Harmonics? Violin at this section to possibly then make it appear tragic but to drag out to build suspense? This part is quite complex as when they mention the name of the person who lived here previously the lights flicker.


2:20 - 5:00 approx.
From there onwards the music will be very subtle to help build the tension. At particular moments the music will fade in and out and the vocal sections will be pointed at the most disturbing areas of the story they tell (screams that is fading in and out of each other possibly saying ‘stop’, ‘father’ etc which are muffled?) When the story is finished noises will be heard upstairs and here the music will start to get louder and faster. It will become quite hectic; becoming louder and quieter etc. (Just like the heartbeat when your body is full of adrenaline). When they find out that it was only the dog - the beat becomes slower and calmer etc. The newspaper is in full screen and they realise what it shows. Just like the earlier scene where the newspaper was first seen, the music will be repeated. However, when we shift from picture to headline to date; the music can become more hectic, change in instrument more looping etc.

POSTER NEW IDEA
Whilst coming up with numerous ideas for the poster, we came across with a brand new idea based around the Grim Reaper. The ideas consist of his skeleton hand holding a newspaper, him reading a mystic ball - however, the challenge was to create a skeleton hand. This then got scrapped! Now, we're using his scythe with a few speckles of blood on the tip with a reflection of the stairs (now suggested to be a screaming face of one of the characters.) We have made a draft but awaiting for a photo to slip in to make the reflection.

PROBLEMS
Due to weather, and that a cast can't get together at times we agree on (even when we arranged a date 2 weeks in advanced!) we have not progressed at all. It is very annoying and is something we are all struggling with in the class. So, hopefully, we will be getting another cast which means that the whole idea will have to be thought out again to fit in with the new cast. Fingers crossed!!!

REDRAFT OF POSTER
I think Paul and I have settled with a design for our film poster. It consists of a picture of an existing newspaper which we have written "TONIGHT YOU DIE" in red pen photo shopped onto the image. It has a "Dark Knight" sort of feel with the writing in in the style of the Joker graffiting the posters. IF we can do this successfully, we will place a skeleton's hand to suggesting it is holding it. We will then try to place a blade cutting through the newspaper. we started the idea of this however it didn't work.

FURTHER PROBLEMS
I haven't been on for a while because our new cast failed on us so, we came up with the conclusion of a new idea which Paul came up with. We have used Jenna as our main star as she is in our media class and her group have faced as us so in turn, if they need us we'll be in there's. The new idea consists of Jenna walking down the street lonely and sad as she has lost everything, these will be seen as flashbalacks during the course of film and at the end she tries to commit suicide however she doesn't as she still has hope. So we need a poster for it however we have the majority of the street scenes done as myself and Paul are in it too!!

HOPE
Hope is the new name for our new film. As we have decided to completely change our idea due to restraints of time, we have to get a move on! We have about 3 weeks for the final deadline, and this will be a challenge to get everything done. Now, we have decided to re-shoot the beginning and end; to try and get this as professional as possible in the time we have left.

Film Treatment

It starts with the unnamed woman looking depressed with a voice over of a short four line poem about losing everything. The screen then fades into the first of many flashbacks of her being happy with her friends. There is a group of four of them altogether just sitting around, chatting and laughing.

The screen then fades back to her on the street walking down hill. She walks around a corner where a homeless man is sitting and asks her for some change. The screen then changes to a flashback of her with some friends bragging about an expensive bag and pair of shoes she has just bought. They are standing around outside. It then fades back into the street scene where she throws a few coins at the homeless man into his cup and carries on walking. The homeless man then gets up and starts following her shaking his cup and keeping on asking for more change. She then turns round and shouts at him to leave her alone and runs off while a flashback starts of her in an office being excluded from school. She then storms out and sticks her middle finger up at the teacher.

It then fades back to the street and she bumps into a man walking down the street and he shows a concern for her because see is looking distraught and in a bit of a rush. It then fades to a scene with her sitting around in her bedroom when she gets a text off her boyfriend to break up with her very harshly and she then hunches over and starts crying.

It then fades back to the street and she finds a secluded area and rests against the wall and drops down. It then fades to her setting fire to photos, letters, and some other things that has memories of people past and walks out with the fire still burning. It then fades back to her in the secluded area. She takes out a bottle of vodka and a tub of drugs. She takes a swig of the vodka and is about to take some of the drugs before she gets a text message from one of her friends saying she hopes she’s OK and will chat with her tomorrow. Then a poem is read out as a voice over about what is there left in life? Nothing but hope and love, at which point she gives a slight smiles and the screen fades to white.

HEADLINE REVISITED
Due to our deadline being the 29TH MARCH.... we consider whether or not to do headline if we have the chance to as we have spent a lot of time on this project and for Hope, we have not spent a lot of time and don't have the amount of work like headline for it. HOPEFULLY, we can film our original idea today :D Paul came up with a new idea for the movie poster for headline, which eradicates all misleading thoughts about what our film is going to be. The poster will show them on the sofa, looking scared etc... and above the in the centre will be a piece of newspaper with headline and today you die and a showery figure above it. It shows that it is going to be a thriller not a bloody gore horror film which some people say it was with our original idea.

HALLELUJAH!!!
Headline is filmed!!! We managed to get it filmed on Friday evening and we're starting the editing process!! Now, we have to create the movie poster - which shouldn't take too long. Review - which I have nearly done!!! Looks like the deadine will be met!

OPENING IDEA
To make it more unique and less borning, the Convenet is a film which tells the story in its opening credits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l2B0kxvAgE This will make our film, I think, better and to make it stand out that little more - We could have clips of the newspaper, audio of the past killnigs and pictures of Alexander etc.

HEADLINE FILMED AND EDITED
We finally managed to film and completely edited a first draft of the film which we are satisfied enough with. There is a few minor errors for example Dean discussing the Ring there is a slight jump. However, all-in-all, we are pleased. We have included the music, opening and closing credits and I did the voice over for the news report. We spent Friday doing all of this work as there was so much to do to a complete satisfactory edit. Looking back, there is still some errors like shadowing on the couches and annoying reflections however they are not completely noticeable.


MOVIE POSTER
Here is our final idea for our movie poster, which you can see is completely different from the previous ideas we have had. With this idea, it compeletly eradicates the sense of a bloody horror film which many people we had asked for feedback said that this is what they beleived that the film was going to be. There are two main images which are seperated with a banner in thwe centre designed to be a newspaper with all of the relevant information. This also links to our second film idea Hope as it ties in with the Eagle Eye poster which you will be able to see later. This product relates to our film due to the fact that the banner in the centre is designed to mimick a newspaper which is the basis our film. The poster also convies the sense that they are being watched as seen in the top picture where the cast are relaxing watching a horror film.



REVIEW PAGE
Here is the review page for our movie. We had to come up with another two film reviews because being from an independant film maker, we won't have that much coverage. I wrote the review for Headline whilst Paul came up with the other two and formatted the whole thing. We have used screen shots from our film and have used screen shots from the second take of Headline for the negative film. To make it formal, we used a star rating system and headings which I researched, looking at Empire's online reviews.


EVALUATION


IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONAL OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Our media coursework isn't great, however we have tried to keep to original conventions of a horror/thriller short film. The narrative of our film follows Torodov's 5 Stages loosely however, we can apply this theory to our film. Our film, like all horror/thriller films return to equilibrium therefore theaudience is left satisifed. We have also explored voyeurism with our film as it is based around a group of teenagers watching a horror movie and they become a part of a horror/thriller film.



Our review page however challenge simple conventions as we usually would not find this sort of articles in Empire. This product and our main task links due to the use of font as the font we have used is seen during the titles and is the font used as the headings in the review page. The layout also challenges conventions of a review article as the layout is in the style of someone writing, and sticking the pictures down with sticky tape. This what makes the review page unique as it is completely different from existing articels however some of the features can be seen between existing film reviews and ours. For example, the layout of the articles themselves are based upon reviews I researched on Empire's magazine where it tells you the information and how many stars that was awarded plus the columing of plot; review and verdict sections. The style that we have written them in are also seen in existing media products as they are quite informal with a few jokes however with some honesty; for example the quality in some places is poor.


The movie poster on the other had, is very conventional to existing movie posters. Using Eagle Eye's film poster as a refrence and to others such as Deception, Disturbia and The Happening; there is a divide within our poster which is our newspaper. Plus, with the other relevenant information such as date released, actors/esses etc, the poster's authenticity is very close to existing products. We have placed our film's company identity also as the audience can make reference to who made it and that the release date and tagline informs the audience what genre the film is immediately.


However, unlike horror/thriller films the lighting is quite bright. This is due to essentially time constraints as we would have filmed it at night during the winter season however due to unforseenable winter showers and unreliable people this was not achieved. In addition, the scene where Jack describes Alexander Manson, we had to brighten that section becasue it was not visible. This can challenge conventions of existing products as the majority of horror/thriller movies use very little lighting and have a dark colour pallette whilst ours is quite bright and artificual. Also, you do not see any blood or killing, which Paul was quite dissappointed with but needless to say this would not have worked because of the non-existant budget. It would have been very obvious and ruin the whole film.


Like all films, a score was made for our film which we tried and use to create tension at specific points in the film. The music was very slow to prolong the tension further and with the effects of thunder and lighting to make it that little bit more scary.


HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLERY TEXTS?

Looking at the products we have created as a set, they do work well however certain elements could have been better. The filiming was limited not just due to time constraints but with the equipment too as to film it better; we needed to film it handheld with the cost of a shakey production. Also, without any lighting packs, we could not afford to turn the lights off in the lving room as nothing would be seen and the footage would have to be restored. On the contray, if we filmed when we were supposed to a better outcome might have been achieved.


Although, as a set they all link which is vital. The narrative is seen through the movie poster as the audience can draw to the conclusion that the disruption to equilbrium is due to a stalker which might not be human due to the lighting used. The font used in the opening titles is seen in the movie poster as the headings. As all of the film mentioned in the review are horrors, the audience can conclude that this magazine along with Dark Circle are ones that specifically direct their attention to this genre. This therefore, might be able to go into the mainstream as a potential opening in the market might be seen.


The setbacks of time and no actors/resses really cost us as there were no amount of time to sufficnetly make ammendments to any of the products as the film was our first and final cut; the review page was the first draft as it couldn't be done without seeing what the film looked like and the movie poster was the first idea for this cast. This would be something that I would take into account if I had the opportunity to redo the project or when I start a new one.


If we were to settle with Hope, the two products of the film and the psoter would have worked well together also. The tagline for this film would have been mentioned at the end of the movie and the audience feels that the character does have hope. Our symbol for this film would have been the dove, to represent a belief that you can lose everything important to you however have hope left to restore everything.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?


The audience feedback that we got shared the same criticism that the sound was poor. Indeed it was however, this would have been one thing that we would have rectified if we had more time. Overall, the feedback was postive and that they enjoyed the film. They like the quality of the picture, the music and more importantly the acting. They liked the joke about the Ring and found it funny. Although, I don't think that the film was well liked as on YouTube there is not a lot of comments posted as we had placed it onto Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and somebody did give it a thumbs down.