Evaluation 7 - Looking at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have progressed and learnt a lot since we completed it. I learnt many things during our preliminary task that I took with me and applied during the filming and editing of our final product. For example during our preliminary task I learnt about the importance of having a storyboard, shot list and prop list, without these it can make the filming process longer and more confusing as you don't know what scenes need filming and what order they should be done in. We did not plan out our shots well enough which meant that when we went to edit the film we had some shots missing and it meant that our film didn't flow and the ending was very abrupt. We did not plan our film very well because we were all to excited and just wanted to jump straight into filming it, and because we all had so many ideas in our heads that we wanted to do, so left the storyboard to later when we realised that we needed. We encountered other problems such as, having shaky camera shots and the actors not knowing their lines meaning it did not look very good when we put it together in editing. We also needed to find music, but we didn't understand the importance of choosing music, so we used a piece one of the first pieces of music we found, we didn't look very hard. So looking back at it now I can understand that the music doesn't really fit with the genre of the film and sounds wrong when put together with the film.
From this I have learnt that you need to create your storyboard, shot list and prop list before you start to film along with finding an actor and location to film in.

I learnt a lot from the mistakes I made when making our preliminary film, we were much more prepared when before we started to film our final product. We spent a while forming an idea for our story, then writing our film treatment. We then made our storyboard, shot list, prop list and found our location and actress. I can see the difference it makes by being prepared before going to film as we were far more organised and we knew what to film, what order to film in and we were much calmer when filming because we had everything planned out. This then also meant that our final product improved a lot compared to my preliminary film.
We also did more research into our genre and themes that we wanted to portray, we did this so that we had a better understanding of how to convey certain emotions and themes. We did different types of research, such as watch film openings that were in the genre of psychological thriller then analysing them. This helped us a lot to understand the conventions of a opening to a psychological thriller.
I also now knew the importance of music and how it contributes to the overall film. Because of this as a group we spent many hours trying to find the perfect piece of music and we did a lot of trial and error testing bits of music with the film that we had edited.
Overall I believe that I have learnt a lot since filming our preliminary task and it is shown through the final product for our main task.

Evaluation 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Canon EOS 550D

I have learnt a lot about the different types of technologies that are involved in creating a film opening.

Camera:
For our film opening we used a Canon EOS 550D, which we borrowed from the school. As a group we hadn't had much experience using the camera apart from filming our preliminary task, but we did not get a lot of time to fully understand all the features of the camera. So when we came to shoot our film, we allocated some time before shooting where we could play around with the camera and test out different shots and experiment with shots we hadn't tried. For example, we were experimenting with the camera and Georgia managed to film my fairy lights going from blurry to focus whilst panning down, which we ended up using when we came to editing. 
From this I have learnt that by experimenting with the camera, trying different shots and getting used to the camera and its features you can have a wider range of shots available for you to use. This then can improve the quality and standard of a film opening.

Features of the Camera
When we came to shoot our film, we allocated some time before shooting where we could play around with the camera and test out different shots and experiment with shots we hadn't tried. For example, we were experimenting with the camera and Georgia managed to film my fairy lights going from blurry to focus whilst panning down, which we ended up using when we came to editing. 
From this I have learnt that by experimenting with the camera, trying different shots and getting used to the camera and its features you can have a wider range of shots available for you to use. This then can improve the quality and standard of a film opening. We also found that the 50mm lens was most suitable for filming mid shots, 75mm for long shots and the 35mm lens for wide shots, this allowed us to use the camera lenses effectively. However looking back at our final product there are shots that I can pick out that we could have improved upon by using a different lens or using a different technique. From this I have learnt new skills that I can use in future projects.

Final Cut Pro:
To edit our film opening we used the software, Final Cut Pro. Again we had used this prior to doing our main task, however that had not been since our preliminary task, meaning we were all out of practise and had forgotten how to use some of the features of the software. This meant that on our first few days of editing we spent finding all the features and getting used to using the software, as there was lots to take in and understand. I have had previous experience with editing software such as iMovie which is a simpler version of final cut pro, so I was able to get used to using final cut pro quite quickly. 
There are many features with in final cut pro, we had a selection of tools that we had found, for example we used a tool which allowed us to change the pace of some shots making them faster or slower. To slow down or speed up a clip, I used the short cut pressing 'Command J' then typing in how much faster or slower we wanted the clip to be.
We used this a lot as we found that some of our shots looked better in slow motion, we slowed down the shot of the fairy lights and the diary, we wanted the pace of our film opening to be slow as that follows the conventions of a traditional film opening to a psychological thriller.
Our shots were filmed with low key lighting but the lighting changes throughout our shots, due to the time of day they were each filmed at so we used the contrast tool too make sure each shot had the same low key lighting. The colour of the shots can help to convey the emotions and themes we were trying to portray, the darker purple/blue hue of each shot connotes, sadness and coldness, which are our characters emotions.
Once we had finished editing, we needed to convert all our footage and put it onto Youtube. To do this you need to click on 'Edit' then 'Export' and chose 'Using quicktime conversion', this then lead you a page to choose where to save the film and settings which can be changed.

Sound
We had to find music from a royalty free source, this took some time to find music that we felt portrayed the emotions of our character but also the genre of the film. Once we has found a piece of music that we felt fit our criteria we needed to edit the music so that it fit with the film opening. For example we made it quite and louder at different points in the opening, such as when Callie runs out the door a wind chime plays as the door is opened. To hear the white noise we quietened the music, we did this by using a tool that looked like a fountain pen for the tool bar and select parts of the soundtrack that we wished to change the volume of. We could then drag the points we had made in the track allowing us to change the decibels of the music. 
In our draft we did not have any white noise, this was picked up by A2 students that we asked to analyse our film. This was because our background noise had been deleted, this meant we had to reinsert all of the white noise back into the draft and under the right shot. This caused us problems as we had to find the correct sound clips, but we worked out a way to systematically go through each clip and find the correct sound clip. Once we had down this we altered the volume of the white noise so that it sounded realistic. This all helps the film opening to flow.

Blogger:
We have had to use blogger throughout our pre- production, production and post-production, which then contributes to our final product. Blogger was quite easy to use, however I did have to research how to insert some videos from my computer, this is because they would not work in the blog port. However by researching and using Youtube I found ways around this problem and was able to upload my videos.

Prezi
I have used Prezi within my blog to present some of my blog posts. I had originally had no previous experience with using Prezi, but after researching about it I found that it was an interactive presentation. Making a Prezi was quite easy to understand as it works like any other presentation software, however I came across a problem when I needed to put it into my blog. I had seen my peers using it, but had taking screenshots of their presentations. I wanted to be able to view my Prezi in my blog post so that it was still interactive, so I researched 'how to embed a Prezi on blogger'. After researching I found the solution seeing that it was very simple to embed the Prezi, there is a button which allows you to copy the html and paste it into my blog post.

Evaluation 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

 

Evaluation 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

We interviewed people from our focus group and asked them to tell us who our audience would be and why they think this.
Most people thought that our film should be targeted at people 16 or older as there are themes of depression discussed and they thought this wouldn't be suitable for younger audience to watch, as a group we agreed with them. They also said that our audience would not be any older than 25 as the film would not be as relatable to older audiences.
We asked id they thought people of our age would relate to the film. Most people said 'yes' as they thought that many people from our age group may sugar from depression whether they suffer badly or mildly, as lots of young people will have had to deal with a death of a family member such as a grandparent.
Another question we presented our focus group with was whether they thought the film opening was appealing. We got mixed answers, but most said 'yes' and gave us different reasons why. The main reason we picked up on were that we had created enigma, making them want to continue watching.

Our target audience was people aged 17 to 24, we decided this because of the themes that are shown are more relatable for people within this age group. Another reason we decided this was because of the characters in our film, they are all young and within the age group that we have set as our target audience.
Before filming our final product we did lots of research using the BFI website to investigate how to choose a target audience. For example the BFI from 2014 shows that 15 to 24 year olds are the age group who visit the cinema the most often. This makes them a very suitable target group however we wanted to have a smaller target audience due to the themes within our film, so we decided upon 17 to 24.

If we were to give our film an age certificate it would be a '15' or '18', due to the themes of depression and other content within the film. However after discussing as a group we thought '15' would be the better certificate.
The bbfc says that a '15' certificated film may include: Sexual nudity/ Taking drugs/ Strong violence or language/ Discriminating language or behaviour.

Evaluation 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

For our evaluation we needed to look at independent film companies and conglomerate companies and decide which we thought might distribute our film. Overall we thought that our film would more likely be distributed by an independent film company.


StudioCanal
For further research I went on to the BFI website and looked at the top independent films of 2014. I saw that StudioCanal distributed three of the top four independent films, Paddington (which was the top independent film) and also The Imitation Game and Non-Stop.

Evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film opening we represented teenagers, but we also tried to show mental health, as our character Callie suffers from depression.

From our main task we had chosen to base our film on a news article about a man who had died preventing a suicide attempt. We changed this story so that our character Callie is mourning the death of her friend who died preventing a suicide attempt. This feels have caused Callie to become 'shut off' from everyone so she doesn't talk, this is why in our opening she does not speak at all. She also suffers from depression, we have tried to be sensitive when representing this topic, many teenagers/young adults have had experiences with depression, which can cause them to be anti-social. However many teenagers can already be unsociable, this is another reason why Callie is on her laptop and doesn't speak during the opening.

In one of our shots Callie has her head in her hands, this represents how teenagers can be troubled, caused by different things such as stress. But this also represents mental health as her hands are hiding her pained face, the position she is in can represent how people who are depressed feel.

Through the pace of the film we have tried to represent depression, our film opening is very slow paced, symbolic of how she does not want to interact with anyone or do anything because of her depression. We also wanted to represent mental health through miss-en-scene, Callie is wearing dark clothing, she is in a dark small room and the film is in low key lighting.

Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film follows some conventions of real media products, for example our opening introduces character, setting and time period and also creates enigma, we also tried to use the letter as a macguffin in our film opening, to help it all fit together.

The genre of our film opening is a psychological thriller so we wanted to follow the main conventions of a film opening of this type, to do this we had studied various film openings within this genre. For example, our opening is quite slow which is one of the main features of a psychological thriller.


Frame One
Our film opening conforms to some conventions of a film opening such as time period/date are introduced at the beginning of our opening. The date '3rd January 2015' is clearly written showing it has significance to the storyline. To show the importance of the date we made sure it was at the very start so the audience knew straight away when our film was set. We have also shown its significance through our use of the camera, as the shot starts off blurred but goes into focus and the date is clear, making it easier to notice. In editing we have also extended the length of the shot, so it is slow, this can help to convey the importance of the date as it is shown for a long period of time.
Our first shot is very like the opening of the film 'Memento', we studied this film opening and took inspiration from it. The camera technique used in the film helps to create a very slow pace but it's not so slow it looks like a picture. We tried to emulate this when filming this particular shot as we have slow camera movements on an almost still shot. In this way we have conformed to the conventions of a film opening of a psychological thriller film opening.

Frame Two

When putting in our production company logo we wanted it to still flow, so we had it straight after the first shot as we felt a break was needed to show the opening was moving on. The shot we used in the background is a slow moving shot which pans downwards, we felt that this was a perfect shot to help introduce the next part of our opening as the panning down of the camera appears to link the two shots together, in a transition.

Frame Three 

Another convention of a film opening is to create enigma to hook the audience and keep them watching. To create enigma in our opening we decided to use a macguffin feature, which would also help us to link our scenes together. Our macguffin was a letter, which is seen at the beginning of the opening and then throughout the rest of the opening. We did not just want the letter to be a macguffin so we tried to show how the letter had importance, we did this by having multiple shots of the letter in different scenes, like its journey to our main character. The letter creates enigma in our film as the audience don't know what the letter is and what significance it has.

Frame Four

We introduced our characters name using a close-up shot of the letter being turned over and a name written on it. We wanted to introduce the character's name 'Callie' near the beginning, which does not conform with traditional film opening conventions, as most film openings help to create enigma by not revealing the characters name, so the audience want to find out who they are. But because we already had the letter, we felt that we should introduce the characters name, because it didn't flow very well with a random letter being given to a girl.

We have also introduced a new character in this scene but it is clear to see that they are not a main character as only the hands have been shown. In the shot we have blurred his body but focused on his hands and the letter, this creates a focal point for the audience as they will look to the letter and hands as the are in focus, this also shows how the character in the shot does not have great importance in our film.

Frame Five 

Our film opening introduces character which means we have conformed to that convention of film openings, as many films introduce their main character in the first 2 minutes of an opening.

The shot we used to introduce our character is a high angle shot looking down on her, we also introduces setting with this shot as it is clear to see that she is sitting in a bedroom. The shot is also dark and doesn't show her whole face creating some enigma over who she is.

The mies-en-scene of the room also helps to convey who the character is. She is sitting in a dark messy bedroom, and looking down a laptop on social media, these are all stereotypes for a teenagers bedroom, this illustrates to the audience what age the character may be. We have also used costume to show who she is, our character wears all black, which is another stereotype as teenagers are seen to wear dark clothes and be moody, so by using all black clothing we are making it clearer to the audience who she is. The use of the all black is purposeful as our character is in mourning, and black is the typical colour that people wear when mourning.

Frame Six

The main challenge to traditional conventions of a film opening was when we used different locations, most film openings only have one main location, where as we used a bedroom, hallway and a drive. For example in the film opening of 'Forrest Gump' there is only one main location which is the street that Forrest is sitting on. The change in location gives a fast pace to the film opening, but in addition helps to move the opening on. We also wanted to represent the type of house the character was in, so we hung up some coats on a coat rack to show that this is a family home. 

The hallway is dark with light coming through the door, the audience can see the letter being posted. The low key lighting emphasises the shadows in the shot making it seem darker, this creates enigma.
The light on the letter draws the attention of the audience to it, showing its significance again

                                                    
                                                                                    Frame Seven

The diary is also very important in our film, to display this to the audience we have used multiple shots of the diary, first a close-up at the very beginning of the opening and then later on have an over the shoulder shot which focuses on the diary. By having more than one shot of the diary, we have shown its importance in the film, like the letter. In editing we put some shots of the girl and the diary together, to show her looking at it and how she is clearly upset by something. By putting the shots of her looking upset and looking at the diary we have shown how the diary or something written in the diary may be upsetting her.

The over the shoulder camera shot also helps to show that the diary or something in it has caused her to get upset as the, shot allows the audience to look at the diary from her perspective. The range of shots, techniques and camera lenses we have used in the opening make the opening look more professional and looks more like films that you would see.

Further on in our opening we used a close up of a newspaper article, which says 'man dies preventing', it is clear that the article has been ripped and is of some importance to our character as she is looking at it.

We used a close-up shot so that the audience can read the heading of the article and in editing we slowed the clip down so that there is enough time for the audience to read it. The slowed pace also depicts how the article has meaning, especially to our main character.
Enigma is created with this shot as the audience do not know how the man died, or why it is important to our character, or why she has ripped our what the article did say. This suggests to the audience that the article has a big focus in the film.
In the brief for our main task we told that we had to base our story off of a news article that we had been given or that we had found. The article we chose to use was 'Man Dies Preventing Suicide', we wanted to show that this was an important theme during our film, so we used a close up of the news article. However because we did not want to give away our plot we ripped the end of the article out, creating enigma.

Frame Eight

Our character is seen to run out of the house and dropping the letter by the door, this creates enigma as the audience don't know what has caused the character to run our the house and how the letter has effected her. We don't show the character reading the letter, so the audience do not know the contents off the letter, all they know is  that it has upset her, so much that she runs away. This mystery surrounding the letter causes confusion for the audience as they don't yet understand what has happened. This is conforming to traditional conventions of film openings, because we have created enigma and confusion, which is necessary in openings to keep the audience interested in the film.

Frame Nine

Our last shot is a long shot watching our character running away. We have challenged the conventions of a film opening with this shot, because in editing we slowed the end of the clip down and played the titles over the top of the end of the clip. This challenges traditional film openings as many have the titles over black screen and the shots are not slowed down. We wanted to slow it down though because it would lead straight into a flash back so by slowing it down it links the clips the shots.

Main Task Final Cut - Minutes, Hours, Days

This is our final product for our main task, called 'Minutes, Hours, Days'

Re Shoot

We needed to re-shoot a few of our scenes, however I was not there to do the re-shoot because I was on a school trip.
After we had gone into editing we found that we had a few shots missing and we needed to re-shoot those. We also needed shoot new shots, because our opening did not flow and it did not look professional due to the fact it was quite obvious that scenes were missing.
To do our missing scenes we needed to cast another character that was older. So we decided to ask a relative of our original actress to do the shots we needed.

Minutes, Hours, Days - Draft

This is our draft for our main task, called 'Minutes, Hours, Days'

Music Update

For our draft we used a piece of music called 'Tomorrow' by Bensound, we originally wanted to use this piece of music as we felt it fitted well with our opening. However after looking again at film openings in the genre of psychological thriller, such as 'One Hour Photo', we thought that the music didn't fit the genre.
After this we searched for another piece of music and we eventually found a piece called 'Here With Me' by Susie Suh and Robot Koch. This piece fitted our genre and opening much better than the previous piece we had found.

From this I have learnt that by taking more time and care into researching music, we could improve our film opening. We were able to portray the genre we wanted and the music helped to do that, as it can help to make an audience feel a certain way. After doing more research and understanding this, we were able to find music more suitable for our film genre and improve our film opening

New Shots

As a group we planned to do two new shots of the letter, because from our final draft we believe that it was not clear enough to the audience that it was an important prop/McGuffin object as it helps our to guide our film. We thought is was not clear as our feedback from our peers suggested that they did not realise that it had significant importance to our storyline.
So we felt it's significance needed to be shown in the opening and to also create more enigma surrounding the letter and we planned new shots that we would film. Two close up shots of the letter in someone's hand. We wanted the shots to just focus on the letter and for it to then to be turned over so the audience could read the name 'Callie' on it.

First Draft

A2 Student Feedback

Once we had finished our final draft our our film opening, we asked A2 students to critic our openings and gives us feedback on what we could do to improve upon it. We got a varied response from the different students.

• One student said 'Overall it is good, however there are certain shots such as the one of the bedroom     door that could be improved'

• We were also told that our opening '[was] to fast, so to improve should try to slow down the pace of it, maybe by slowing down some shots, or not crop some as much' 

• Another student said 'The music could be changed. It doesn't really fit with the genre of the film and doesn't match the pace of the opening as the music is slower than the opening'

• A frequent comment that many students made was 'You need to add in white noise'

From this feedback we were able to understand how we could improve upon our opening before finishing our final product. Such as changing some of our shots and lengthening others to slow down the pace of our opening. By slowing down the pace our opening would fit into the genre of psychological thrillers better than in the draft.

Music

We have been finding it quite hard to find music that we feel is right for our film. We have spent a few lessons and spare time looking for music on copy right free websites, such as freeplaymusic.com and mobygratis.com.
We wanted to use a piece of music called 'Tomorrow' by Bensound, however another group was already using it, but we still used it as we felt it was the piece of music that we had found that fitted our film the best.

Editing 18/02/16

We started editing our film at the end of January, straight after we had finished filming. By getting into the film straight after it meant that we all still had our original idea for the film in our heads, making it easier to get all of our editing done as we knew exactly how we wanted it.

However this showed our inexperience, because once we had finished editing we found many things wrong with it, and lots of shots that we ended up not liking. For example when filming we did a shoot which was the camera being turned in a circle, we wanted to represent the feeling of our main character's head spinning. But when we put it into the film, it didn't fit and it also didn't look very nice as you could see the camera shake so we took it out.

We had taken many of our shoots out and altered others before we had our final draft.

Editing 15/02/16

We have progressed in our editing process and have been trying out different techniques, such as speeding up and slowing down shots. At the start of our editing process when we were deciding what shots we were going to use we found a shot that we hadn't originally planned to do where the camera pans down some fairy lights, however we found that it was the perfect shot to do some of our credits over, such as our production company name. We slowed down the shot, to make it longer and it fit perfectly within our opening.

We have come across some difficulties with how to do certain things. For example we did not know how to insert texts over the top of shots, so I went onto YouTube and looked up how to do it and taught myself. This way I am more likely to remember how to do it.






We also had an issue with white noise in our opening. Our background noise was some how deleted, so we had to spend a lesson retrieving it. This slowed our editing process down, as we could not edit our opening during that time.

New Media Skils

Whilst working on the main task I have gain and improved my skills. I have learnt new camera techniques to use when filming, by experimenting in previous tasks and improving them during the main task. For example one of the shots we use in our opening was us experimenting with focus and blur whilst panning the camera.
I have also improved my editing skills, as I have had to use final cut pro more often. I have learnt shortcuts and many different features within the software that create various effects that can add to the film opening.

Started Editing

We started to edit our film opening today. We hadn't done any editing in a few months so it took us a while to get used to the software again and remember how to do certain things, for example we had to remember the process for uploading all our files and converting them before putting them in final cut pro.
To convert our files we used a program called MPEG Stream clip, before converting all our footage had to create a new folder for it to be saved in. This made it easier for us to find all our converted footage when we needed to put it into final cut pro.
Once we had loaded all our footage into final cut pro we had to sort through it and choose which shots we wanted to go where in our film. To start we found all the shots we wanted and put them in no order, but we could see them all. Next we then started to order them all and watch all the clips through and edit the length of some of them.

New Character

We we decided that we needed to re-shoot some shots from our opening, we also knew that we wanted some new shots to replace ones that we felt didn't work within our opening. As a group we decided that we wanted to show the letter that we had been using in more detail, as it is not really shown in our opening or when it is the audience may not pick up on it's significance. So we knew that we wanted to film a parent of our character holding the letter, so that we could do a close up shot of it, which would illustrate that it was important in our film.

We wanted our new character to be male and over 30, to make it clear to the audience that they were the dad of our character Callie. The actor did not need any acting experience as we only wanted a few close up shots of them holding and turning over the letter.

Evaluation of Film Shoot

When looking back at our film shoots, I have noticed how there are many things we could improve upon that would have made our filming days more successful.
For example, during both shots, I feel that we were not as focus as we could have been, I feel this is one of the reasons why we had to do a re-shoot day. We did not have it clear what we were aiming to do on our first day and we got distracted, this meant that we did not film all our shots.
Due to us not properly discussing what we wanted to do in our day we forgot what scenes we had shot. To improve we could have made a more detailed filming schedule, showing what scenes we were going to shoot first, the order in which we were going to film and at what times. If we had set ourselves a target to have certain scenes done by certain times, I feel that we would have stayed on track and would have been more focused. If this had happened we may not have had to do another day of filming.
After our first day of filming I created a new filming schedule that was more detailed. If our original filming schedule had been as detailed we may have had a more successful day of filming.

Planning Dates To Film

My group made a chat so we could communicate whilst not at school. We used it to organise our filming dates and timings, we did this to organise our main shoot and re-shoots.

Re-Shoot

Due to difficulties when we were originally filming we had to re-shoot some scenes and add some more in. We did this the weekend after and spent the week evaluating what we had done during our previous shoot and how we could improve upon it and find other ways to film certain shots that we feel did not come out the way we wanted them to.

For example we had previous filmed quick shots descending down the stairs, because we wanted to show how our character was moving downstairs. However when we watched back our scenes on Final Cut Pro, we found that it did not work with our film opening and didn't look right. This was one of the scenes we evaluated and re filmed. We wanted to change how we had previously filmed it, we knew that taking quick shots and moving down the stairs gradually didn't work so we tried a different technique. Instead we used a paying shot from the corner of the stairs and followed our character as she runs down the stairs. We felt that this was a much clearer shot and looked much better.

Started Filming

We started filming our main task today. We have been filming in my bedroom as it was the room we felt that fitted our story plot and character best.

We managed to get most of our shots done, however there were a few extra bits that still need to be filmed but due to other commitments we weren't able to film our 2 minutes all in one day. This was a little frustrating as we all wanted to get it done on one day, but we just decided on another date that we would have to complete the filming one; Sunday 17th January.

During our filming, we came across some difficulties when trying to film certain things, however we managed to come up with a solution that worked for us. We also did some experimenting with the camera and the different lenses, for example we were filming the fairy lights in my room and were testing different ways to film them and filming them in and out of focus.

Our day was successful and we mostly stuck to our storyboard, but did have to adapt and make a few changes that we feel would make our opening better.

Filming Schedule

We created a filming schedule to make sure that we had planned out our day and to minimise wasting the time we had so we could do all of our filming effectively.

10 am - Arrive at our location
10:10 am - Set up the equipment needed in our first location (the bedroom)
10:30 am - Practising our shots before we start filming (making sure we knew which shots to use and to see if they worked)
11 am - Actress arrives
11:30 am - Start filming
15 pm - Finish filming

RMA Research

Researching real media artefacts has helped me to understand the requirements for a film from the psychological thriller genre. I have looked at different film openings such as, 'The Machinist' and 'Memento' and they have shown me the stereotypes of film openings from this genre. They typically are very slow, this is to create tension.
They can have off key music or violin heavy music, helping to create tension and keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
The lighting is typically dark with low key lighting to accentuate the shadows, this can help to scare the audience and to keep them watching as figures can be hidden by the dark, so they need to keep watching to find out who the character is and their importance.
Costume and make up is not as important as the scenes can be very dark, or in films like 'Memento' the characters are not even shown in the first 2 minutes. However in 'The Machinist' the main character is revealed and costume and make up play a big role in presenting the character and illustrating to the audience who they are.

Overall, through my research I know have the knowledge on how to create a successful film opening for a film from the psychological film genre.

The Number 23 - Film Opening Analysis

The Number 23 is a psychological thriller. I have decided to analysis this film opening because my groups film opening is also a psychological thriller, so it will help me to understand the components of that type of film.

The first two minutes of this film opening contains the credits and music, however they still have psychological thriller elements. For example the number '23' is repeatedly shown throughout the credits and all the text is in the typewriter font giving it a old fashioned look and is in a deep red colour. As the opening titles continue blood splattering are shown over the pages and writing and more blood is shown on the pages as they progress.

The music used is orchestral but mainly strings, this type of music cause tension and suspense. Further on in the music drums and flutes are added but stringed instruments are still more dominant. At the very end of the credits the music stops as the number '23' is displayed and silence follows it, creating suspense. Typewriter sounds can be heard when credits are typed out, this adds to the effect of creating tension.

Quantitative and Qualitative Audience Research

We used different techniques for our audience research, we used quantitative and qualitative research, this allowed us to gain a wide range of information, which helped us when choosing our target audience.

Definitions:
Quantitative research
Quantitative research is ‘Explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analysed using mathematically based methods (in particular statistics)’. The most common form of quantitative research is surveys (Focus Groups).
Quantitative research is useful for finding out specific information such as ‘Which is the most popular?’ The main benefit of quantitative research is that, if conducted properly, it can provide very accurate statistical information. However, one of the biggest shortcomings of quantitative research is that, whilst it can make it clear what is popular, it provides little insight into why something is popular.

Qualitative research
Qualitative research is ‘Research that is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research’. The most common form of qualitative research is interviews. Qualitative research helps to address the why question: it is a means of speculating as to why something is popular. However, unlike quantitative research, qualitative research cannot be measured or quantified accurately.

We used the quantitative research technique when we made our focus groups and asked them certain questions such as, 'What is your favourite genre of film' and from this we were able to see how we could make our film more appealing to our target audience. For example we used a younger actor, this way the audience can relate to her more, rather than if it was an older actor.

We did some interviews/questionnaires to get a more detailed response from our target audience.  For example we asked people what attracts them about a psychological thriller that makes them want to watch. In response our focus groups said things such as, 'Lots of enigma and suspense, so there is a big jump scare'. From this we knew that our film opening couldn't give much information away to create enigma.

Focus Group Responses

Audience Classification

The need to define audiences has been driven by commercial needs.  Many media businesses need to deliver audiences’ eyeballs, or ears, to advertisers in order to be profitable and so the audience needs to be categorised.

Durning my audience research I found out about 'The Registrar General’s Social Scale', which is a scale that the British Government uses to define the populace through their occupation.

This social scale has benefits as it can help to companies to select a target audience which suitable for their film. However it can also be criticised and crude and rigid.
There are other methods of selecting target audiences, such as 'VALS' Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles or Selby's Psychographic Clusters. These can be a more effective way of deciding upon a target audience and are not as rigid or crude as The Registrars General's Social Scale.

Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles
These are psychographic (psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles) variables.

• Actualisers: Successful, wealthy, dynamic people for whom image is important as an expression of their individuality.
• Fulfilleds: Mature people who are well-educated professionals. This group values order, knowledge and responsibilities.
• Achievers: Successful and career-orientated people. They are politically conservative and value the status quo. Image is important to them and they tend to buy established, well-known products.
• Experiencers: Young, impulsive and rebellious. They like new products and styles but soon tire of them and search for new novelties. They spend as much as they can afford on clothing, fast food, music and films.
• Believers: Conservative people who believe in traditional institutions, such as the Church, and in the importance of the family and community. Their lifestyle tends to be very routine. Their income is small but sufficient.
• Strivers: Tend to be unsure of themselves and have a low income. They are striving for approval from others, which they feel they could gain by ownership of possessions, most of which they cannot afford.
• Makers: Makers are do-it-yourself enthusiasts and tend to live a conventional, family life.
• Strugglers: Strugglers are on the lowest income and tend to be loyal to their favourite brands.

Selby's Psychographic Clusters

This is similar to the VALs system, but the Psychographic Clusters is a system invented by Keith Selby. His categories include:

• Trendies: who crave the admiration of their peers.

• Egoists: who seek pleasure.

• Puritans: who wish to feel virtuous.

• Innovators: who wish to make their mark.

• Rebels: who wish to remake their world in their own image.

• Drifters: who are not sure what they want.

• Drop-outs: who shun commitments of any kind.

• Traditionalists: who want things to stay as they are.

• Utopians: who want the world to be a better place.

• Cynics: who have to have something to complain about.

• Cowboys: who want easy money.

This research has helped me understand how to pick out a target audience that would be suitable for my film opening. For example, as a group we knew we wanted to target a younger audience so the categories our audience would come under for VALS would be, 'experiencers' and maybe 'strugglers' as our target audience would be mostly teenagers, so they would be on a low income.

However The Registrars General's Social Scale had not helped me when choosing my target audience. This is because our target audience is 17 to 24 year olds and The Registrars does not cater for people who are not committed jobs/careers.

Film Treatment

Film Title: Minutes, Hours, Days.

Production Name: Rain Drop Productions

Film Duration: 2 minutes

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Target Audience: 15 to 24 Male/Female

News Article Used: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4556983.ece
Man dies preventing suicide.

Character Breakdown:

Main character - Callie

• 17
• Female
• Student
• She was best friends with the man who died

Budget: £0

Props: - Laptop

• Letter | Envelope
• Clock
• Fairy Lights

Synopsis:

It had been week since Tommy had died saving Callie. She was in an emotional state, her head was spinning and she felt that it was all her fault. He had only died because of her. Time passed very slowly and she was getting lots of hurtful messages on social media because everyone thought she had caused his painful death. She was getting more and more depressed. Callie locked herself in her room and let no one talk to her, see her. She wouldn’t eat or drink anything, she would just lie in her bed crying for days.

A letter for Tommy’s funeral slid under Callie’s door, Tommy’s name and the 20th of January stood out on the piece of paper. As she read it tears dropped on the piece of paper. She read it and flew out of the room, angrily crying and running out of her house. As she was running down the road she dropped the piece of paper.

(Flashback) January 4th 2015. Callie was in a very bad place in her life, she had thought about many times when she could end her life, but today was the day she was going through with it. Callie hadn’t had a good upbringing, and she felt all alone. Despite being told on various occasions that they was always there for her and she would never face any problems alone.

As she was running up to the top of the building, Tom was chasing after her, shouting for her to stop, tears in her eyes she stopped at the edge of the roof and looked down. Making a heroic move, Tom pushed her from the edge on to the roof, he accidentally fell from the roof.

(Back to present) Callie ran into the woods and hid from the world, the only place she felt safe in the world, alone in the dark wood. No one could find Callie for days. She appeared in the paper several times “missing girl”, “girl missing after blamed for friends death”. 3 days had passed and Callie was nowhere to be seen. Her family were getting worried as she had been missing for so long. Everyone she knew were searching for her.

She turns up last minute at the funeral, and decides not to go in. she waits by a tree, the coffin comes out, followed by a group of people who she assumed were close relatives. She watched closely as the coffin with the body inside was being buried.

Callie started to walk, unsure of where she was going, she just walked and walked. She found herself at tommy’s house, where they were having a family gathering. Looking through the window from the road, Callie saw what she had caused. She saw a group of family and friends with a big part of their life that was missing. She knew what she had to do.

Callie got out her phone and checked her social media accounts. Lots of hurtful messages appeared. She dropped her phone on the ground, cracking as she ran away. Running home she finds her house empty, goes up to her bedroom and finds a paper and pen which is on her school desk surrounded by unfinished schoolwork. She quickly writes out a letter and seals it. Leaving it on the kitchen counter with “mum and dad” written on the front of the envelop. She collects what is needed and goes out of the house. With a tight grip surrounding whatever is in her hands, she leaves the house. Walking back the way she came, she ends up at the church where he was buried.

Walking over to his freshly dug grave, she kneels down beside it and whispers I am sorry. Releases her grip, exposing various pills and drugs in her dainty hand. It was obvious what she was about to do. The morning came around and Callie was found lying next to tommy, dead from an overdose.