Titles

Titles

Art of the title is a website with opening titles/fonts and film company logos and I am going to use this website to get some ideas and pick out some ideas I liked.

Titles:

I like this a lot as its really simple but is very creepy. I like the
way everything is in black and white and the title "The Conjuring"
isn't too big and stands out too much as I think that's what makes the
title creepy. I also like the way the title sort of blends into the tree and also
the way the corners are darker like something is focusing in on the view.

I also like this title a lot as "psycho's acting" stands out compared to the
background a lot which is good as people straight away will know what
the film is called. The color of the title also gives us vibes that
blood is going to be evolved. The background also gives it
a very scary vibe and goes well with the title. I like this
title a lot and would maybe use an idea like this for
our own movie opening.

Filming Schedule

Filming Schedule

Wednesday 11th February- Filming all of opening scene at my house.

5.00pm- Set up camera and tripod.

5.15pm- Start filming.

6.30pm- 10 minute break from filming.

6.40pm-Finish off all filming.

7.30- Go through all footage and make sure we have everything we need.

Thursday 14th February- Recording sounds for opening scene.

5.00pm- Record sounds for opening scene.

5.30- Finish.

On Friday 15th we started putting together all of our footage, cutting and editing it and added sound. We finished editing our opening scene a couple of lessons later.

Casting

Casting

The Mother- The mother who is the main character is played by Antonia Georgiou. The mother is portrayed as a typical mother who takes care of her child. She is dressed in simple clothes and has a very caring personality.

The son- The son is played by Stevie Georgiou. The son is again portrayed as a typical young child, playing on his Ps3. He is dressed in young boys clothes like a young boy would be. His personality is sweet and innocent.

Mind Map

Mind Map Of Horror Movies

 

 

 

As you can see above I did a mind map on a few different horror movies and what each horror movie has involved and how it would make the audience feel.

 

 

Our new movie "The Playhouse" includes a possessed child and ghostly actions so our opening scene is quite similar to Insidious as a possessed child was used in that film and also the conjuring with the ghostly actions.

 

 

Watching open scenes to horror movies helped us get ideas for own. After watching a few we put little bits of each one to create our own.

Plot Overview

Plot overview for The Playhouse

 

 

 

In a quiet village, a family of three live in a house that has been sold for a very cheap price but an unknown reason. One night the mother and son are at home settling in whilst the father is at work. Whilst the son is playing and the mother is in the kitchen preparing dinner, the mother cuts her finger whilst chopping up an apple.

 

When she goes to wash her finger and plaster it up, her husband rings up checking on how they are getting on in their new house. Whilst speaking on the phone the mother hears footsteps quickly scattering across the landing upstairs... thinking it is her son.

 

 

She puts down the phone to her husband with mixed emotions towards what could be going on upstairs. With worry she makes her way upstairs with fear in her face. She thinks its her son but soon to find out her son was downstairs. When she gets upstairs she checks all rooms for her son but there is no sign of him at all. She finally checks her sons room where she finds clothes scattered all over the room, with anger the mother thinks she has found her soon in the bathroom.

 

When she realised that her son is not in the bathroom she calls for him and he appears downstairs. The mother looking even more worried makes her way downstairs to investigate when a pale ghostly looking face appears from the top of the stairs.

Our first movie and why it is better

Why we decided to change our movie and why it is better...

After a very careful and thoughtful decision, we decided to change our opening scene with a completely different story line.

After watching our first opening scene quite a few times we were really unhappy about our opening scene so we decided to plan out some a new opening scene and started planning out where to film, new characters and a new storyline.

We spoke to our media teacher about re-doing our opening scene and at first he disagreed with the idea as it would take a lot of time and we would have to really focus on it as we would only have a couple of weeks. After showing our teacher all the preparation we ready to re-do our opening scene he finally let us go ahead with the idea.

Here are a few reasons on why we decided to change our movie...

1. Compared to our new and up to date opening scene ... The lighting in our first opening scene was very bad as it was very dark and fuzzy in parts, this caused our opening scene to look very un professional and difficult to see towards the end.

Scene from our first opening scene (The Cellar)

2. There wasn't any speech in our first opening scene so in our re-do we added speech to it. We added dialogue between the mother and son.

AS Evaluation- Question 6

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou

 
 
 
4.  Who would be the audience for your media product?

 The audience for our media product would be teenagers and young adults as the kind of horror used in our opening scene E.G devil child and dark scenes would appeal to this age range.

Anyone older than this sort of age range could find the opening scene and especially the movie if we had to carry it on a little boring.

AS Evaluation- Question 5

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou

 
 
 
5. How did you address/ attract your audience?

We attracted/addressed our audience to our film "The Playhouse" coming up with an attractive name which will make people want to watch the movie from just seeing our title. The title "The Playhouse" will attract our audience as usually playhouses are portrayed as either fun or creepy and scary in terms of horror.

We have also attracted our audience throughout our whole trailer using some a lot of conventions of a horror such as mysterious and scary scenes, dark scenes to cause tension and left the end of our opening scene with a cliff hanger. We left the end of our opening scene with a cliff hanger of the mother looking confused and worried towards thinking someone was upstairs and from behind a face appearing. This will leave the audience with confusion and will make them want to watch the whole film which is attracting the audience.

We also attracted our audience by using good digetic and non digetic sound to make the opening scene seem realistic and good quality. We also made sure our editing of the opening scene was good and not too heavy to make sure again it was good quality. The narrative in our opening scene would again also attract the audience as the dialogue set what the film was going to be on and what was going on at the time which again will also attract the audience.

Our movie is quite similar to real films such as the exorcist and other films which include possessed and weird behaved children.

The exorcist is a film based on a possessed evil child who lives with her mother (Same characters as our movie) and her mom tries to get the devil out of her with the help of the priest. This film was a very successful film and was one of the biggest horror films of its time. If our film has similar aspects to this the exorcist then our opening scene should definitely attract people to watch it.

Overall I wold say that our opening scene has and will attract our audience as we have many conventions of horror's in it and the storyline to the film its self will attract an audience.

AS Evaluation- Question 7

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou

 
 
 
4. Look at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression of it from the full product?

 When I just started AS media we were asked to complete a prelim task which was me and a partner recording for the first time using different camera angles. Here are some of the skills I have gained since the beginning ...

• How to edit footage(filters, cropping, adding sound and general editing)
• How to use the camera properly
• How to create different shots with the camera (close up, long shot etc.)
• How to use the tripod properly to make sure it is steady and looks professional for when recording.

I have improved on my editing footage skills by practicing and having a fiddle around with the software we use for editing which is premier pro and testing all the features to it. By doing this I improved my knowledge on it which was good for when editing our final piece (opening scene) as or editing for our opening scene went very well. I have also improved on using the camera a lot as at the start I wouldn't know all the features to the camera and how to use it properly which would of affected our filming if I didn't improve.

I have also learnt a lot from the start in terms of camera angles and I am now able to preform different angles and shots with the camera. For example at the start I was only able to preform shots such as long shots and wouldn't be able to move the camera with the tripod very well. I improved this by practicing with the camera experimenting.

By doing the prelim task I gained the basic skills to editing and filming which was very important as without getting the basic skills I couldn't progress to where I am now. I am now at a stage where my editing skills are more advanced compared to when I was doing my prelim task.

By doing my main task, opening scene I again learnt a lot as me and my partner in creating the opening  helped each other with the different things s we both learnt from each other.  

Overall I would say from the start I have gained many more media skills compared to the start and the skills I have picked up from the start have very handy along the way .

Audience Research

Audience research

BFI statistical yearbook 2014:

Using the BFI statistical yearbook (2014) we would classify out film using age classifications a 15 which means anyone aged 15 or above can view the film in the cinema and then when released on DVD anyone from the age of 15 can buy the film.

Our audience for our movie "The Playhouse" would be mainly teenagers and young adults. Teenagers aged between 15+ would be able to watch the film but I wouldn't recommend anyone aged 25+ to watch the film as they might not find it as scary as a teenager would. We would rate our film a 15 as some parts of the film could be found disturbing by anyone younger. Anyone 15 or above would find the film scary but not scaring or disturbing.

Our main age group would definitely be 15-24 as we think that this age would be suitable for our film but also  the films that have been put in this category such as The Woman and Black and The Dark night rises all have features of horror involved.

We also think out film would be good for 25-34 year old too as some of the films in the category such as dark night has features of horror and we also think that 25-34  year old's would enjoy our film.

As you can see from the table above the horror movie The Woman in Black has a higher viewing percentage by females which shows that our film "The Playhouse" could also be viewed more by females.

Conventions and Genre-Horror

Conventions and Genre-Horror

Genre: Horror

Horror is a film genre seeking to create a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Horror films often deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, commonly of supernatural origin, into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, aliens, vampires, werewolves, demons, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, and serial killers. Conversely, movies about the supernatural are not necessarily always horrific.

Conventions of a horror:

·         Foggy/dark backgrounds- To create a scary negative atmosphere for the film.  

·         Ghosts- These are typical characters for a horror film as everyone seems to be scared of them.

·         Zombies- These are usually used in zombie apocalypse films and are very common now days.

·         Possessed characters- These are also very common now days in films and are used as they make horror films more believable compared to zombies and ghosts.

·         Old houses- These scare people and let them know a horror film is on its way.

·         Cellars.

·         Abandoned places

·         Grave yards

·         Creepy little children

·         Clowns

·         Castles

·         Woods/forest

·         Dolls

·         Hospitals

·         Bloody

·         Weapons

·         Vampires

·         Darkness

·         Windy places

Film clips from horror movies:

AS Evaluation-Question 4

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou

 
 
 
4.  What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 The kind of media institution that might distribute our product would be an institution that promotes films to young people aged around 15-30. Anyone older would find the film a bit boring but anyone between those ages are most likely to enjoy the film and feel fear.

A good media institution that is a real one would be 20th Century Fox as this company is one of the biggest companies distributing films. I think it would be a good media institution for our movie as they distribute a lot of films and certainly a lot of horror films for a variety of different ages.

For our own film we made our own production company named "Skeleton Productions". We named it this as Skeleton is generally related to horror which our film is based on and was a simple name for a production company.

AS Evaluation-Question 3

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou




3. What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Software and Evaluation:

Throughout constructing our product I have learnt a lot in terms of technology and how to use it. After finishing off filming we had to add after effects to our product b using a software called "Premier Pro". Premier Pro allowed us to add effects such as transactions, filters and many more effects. We could also cut and snip up our product to put it in the correct place. 

We used effects to make parts of our product litter/darker depending on what was going on in the scene and how we wanted the audience to feel. Premier Pro allowed us to do this by choosing a filter and then adjusting it to how light/dark we wanted it. 


*Screen Shot of editing on premier pro*

In other terms of using different softwares I also used Twitter and Facebook to share my finished product and blog with my friends and family to see what their thoughts and opinions were on our finished product. I can either share my product by sharing it to everyone on Facebook/Twitter or sending them a link to my blog (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fantoiageorgiouasmedia98.blogspot.com%2F&ei=pH7YVLTlNp2nggaghwE&usg=AFQjCNFWJOEbChaBC4KUfNrihf4JIoaD2Q). When people do view my blog and finished piece it is good for me as I can get some feedback on my blog and finished product to try and improve my product. 

Another important to my AS Media was my bog which was done through Blogger. Blogger allowed me to present my blog in a very professional and neat way. I would say Blogger is one of the best presentation tools I have used in terms of blogging. Blogging through Blogger is also a lot neater in terms of keeping everything organised and kept together compared to writing on paper where everything could get lost and messed up. 

As you can see from the screenshot to the left, Blogger is very organised you have a bar along the left hand side with all your options to your blog on and everything is very simply presented. 













With Blogger I was also able to carry on working on my blog on the go as I could login to Blogger and work on my blog at home. This was another positive feature to Blogger as I could really focus on my blog and this evaluation especially this way. 

Filming:

When filming we used a Sony handy cam camera to film our product as this camera has very good quality for what we needed it for even though it wasn't in HD. We also used a Tripod when filming to make sure the camera was steady and at the right angle so our product looked professional and tidy. 

The camera had good quality for when we wanted to film close ups which we needed as we recorded some close-ups to show facial expressions of characters in our product. 

We also needed clips of sound for our product to add on top of our product so we did this by recording the sound separately either through our phones (iPhones) or a voice recorder. The quality of recording sounds from our phones was very good as we used "Voice Memo" which is an app pre loaded on iPhones which allows you to record sound. This was a good way to record sound as it cut out a lot of background noise we didn't want as was very clear. 

Research and planning:

We had to do a lot of research and planning along side with filming our product and we had to create many things such as storyboards, a script and a mind map etc. 

For our storyboard we didn't use technology as we did our story board on paper instead of using technology to create it as we used technology to create everything else. With our storyboard we simply presented what our product was going to be about with simple pictures and a caption to explain. We also created a script and typed it up directly on blogger as we just wanted to type us a simple script so it was simple to read. 

Throughout planning everything we also used mind maps and a lot of not making to make sure we didn't forget everything and everything was organised throughout our research and planning. We also had to create a schedule for when we are going to film and also make time for working on our blogs, making a schedule really helped as we went along with the schedule and we didn't run out of time. 

We also pitched a few ideas that we had before deciding on our final idea and we presented our pitch through power point and putting each pitch on a different slide. This was a good software to use as we could clearly read each pitch and they were all presented in a neat way. 

Location Recce:

Before filming our product I took pictures from my phone (iPhone 5C) of the location we used for our product and mainly the places in the location we did a lot of filming in. The quality of the camera on the iPhone was very professional and the phone took vert detailed and good quality images of our location which were perfect for our reece. 

Overall I would say that I have learnt a lot about the technology I have used to create the product I have created as before starting to putting together my opening scene I didn't know about how to use a camera properly and how to adjust the zoom for example. I also didn't know about using software such as Premier Pro and Adobe After Affects. As I was using software such as these I learnt how to use them properly by practicing and also getting help from other. I also didn't know about blogger and how good blogger is in terms of creating a smart black, so overall I would say I have learnt a lot in the process of making my product.

AS Evaluation- Quesion 2

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou




2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
 In our media product I would say we challenged our stereotype as usually in a horror movie you expect the main character to be young and gullible towards everything. We went against this idea as our character was  a middle aged smart business woman. 

As you can see from the screenshot above she is dressed smartly and leaving work which shows she is a business woman. We went against a  typical stereotype as everyone would of predicted a young clueless girl to be in our media product so by changing the stereotype it would shock the people by seeing different. 

AS Evaluation-Question1

AS Evaluation
Antonia Georgiou




1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Our media product has many conventions of a real media product as we used professional softwares to create and edit our opening scene, we used a professional camera and tripod to film everything so we got a professional image, we added titles and credits to make our film like a real media product and many more conventions. 

The software we used to put our opening scene together was "premier pro" and in the process of putting together our opening scene we learnt a lot about "premier pro".

As you can see from the screen shot above premier pro was a very professional software to use as there was many features we could use for editing, sound and putting everything together to make sure of opening scene looked professional and like a real media product would. 

These are some of the features we used when putting together our opening scene...

When we were filming we used a professional camera like someone would use to create a real product and also a tripod to make sure our camera was steady and looked real. 

As you can see from the screen shot above the image quality is very good and very still like a professional media product would be. The filters we also put on to make the background more gloomy and dark was professional as it was realistic looking instead of making the image look fake. This is also another convention of a real media product.

Once we finished editing we added titles and credits to make our opening scene look like a real media product. Without titles and credits our opening scene wouldn't of looked like a real media product at all as all films and media products in general have credits and titles on. 

As you can see from the screenshot above our titles and credits were very professional and looked like titles from a real media product. We used a software called "After Affects" to create our titles and credits for our opening scene as the fonts available were very professional and neat looking and also editable so we could adjust them to how we wanted them. 

Role Allocation

Role Allocation

There is a variety of different roles throughout our opening scene. Here is a list of the characters with their role allocations...

• Antonia Georgiou(Mother): The Mother, Antonia Georgiou in our film is shown as a typical mother who cooks, cleans and looks after her child instead of going out to work. She wears casual but smart clothing and her make-up is very simple.
• Stevie Georgiou(Son of Antonia Georgiou): The Son, Stevie Georgiou in our film again is shown as a sweet little boy but because of the storyline to our opening scene he turns to the complete opposite (evil/possessed). We have done this as it will shock the viewer from how the character has changed.