Costume Analysis

The costume that Pennywise the clown is wearing in the film IT is an example we wish to follow in our horror film. The costume that Pennywise wears comes across more scarier than we would think because they have chosen a basic clown outfit, that we would consider nice, innocent clowns to wear. Pennywise has red hair, this makes him seem scarier as red is usually associated with danger and blood, his hair is also not covering all of his head as most of the top of his head is bald. Research has shown that women consider bald men to be stronger that men who aren't bald, this makes Pennywise seem a lot more dangerous as he may come across to people as someone who they don't want to meet. The colours on his costume are very bright and in your face, bright colours are usually associated with happiness and joy, but thats the complete different thing Pennywise brings to people as he just brings fear and sadness. Clowns are mostly associated with children, this makes Pennywise seem more dangerous as when he is near children he ends up murdering them, which is not what you would think a clown would do around children. Pennywise's eyes are very dark, which makes him look even more evil and scary than usual.

A Synopsis of our Horror Film Opening

Our Plan

Our horror film opening includes a sadistic clown and a vulnerable woman. We named the clown 'Trunco' as the word 'mutilate' in Latin was translated to this, and we thought it sounded really good. The name of our horror film is 'dead funny', we thought this name sounded good because the two words are juxtaposed as death isn't seen as funny. 
It starts off with the clown walking down a dark, lonely street, whilst he's walking down the street it shows the woman doing her everyday thing, like doing her housework in her kitchen, whilst listening to the radio. As he clown gets closer to her house the radio starts to mess up and play a static sound to make the woman freaked out as to what's happening. As the clown gets closer to the woman's house he rings the woman up on her mobile phone, she turns off the radio and she picks up and the clown says to her "would you like a balloon?" she is confused by the question and then answers no, the clown then asks her if she is sure, she then calls him a freak, after that he chuckles down the phone, we are going to make the laugh sound as creepy as possible to freak out the audience. After the phone call the woman carries on doing the washing up, as she is doing the washing up the radio turns on by itself and 'send in the clowns' starts playing on the radio. She gets really freaked out by this and starts to become a bit weary as to why its turned on by itself. Static sound starts to play on the radio as the clown is getting even closer to the house. A few minutes later, there's a knock at the door, as the woman is on edge anyway she hesitates as she walks up to the door, but eventually she gets the courage to open it. When she opens the door there is no one there. She goes out of the front door and looks around, but again there is no one to be seen, except from a red balloon. She walks towards to go get the balloon. After she grabs it she looks at it very mysteriously to think why it was just there. The balloon pops suddenly in her face, and it was filled with blood. As the balloon pops the woman screams with fear, she doesn't realise that while she is doing this that the clown is standing right behind her back.

Selling points of our film

• Clowns have recently been featuring in the news a lot, as there has been a lot of clown spottings in many different citys and towns, so we thought that because of this people would be more on edge watching a film about a clown.
• We are going to make the film as scary as possible if not many people will want to watch it.
• Many people enjoy watching gory, horror films that have a twist, and this is what our horror film includes.

Storyboard for our Horror Film Opening

We ended up changing some of the things in our opening title storyboard when we came to filming it because once we tried to do it, it didnt end up working out and didnt look right. We came up up for solutions for all of the things we changed, and it ended up working out and looking better than our first ideas. We had to change the idea of the clown's face popping up after the balloon popping as we figured out the editing programme we were using wouldnt be able to do that. We also couldnt use the idea of the blood bursting out of the balloon when it popped also, as if the shot went wrong, we wouldnt have been able to film it again as the clothes I was wearing would have been clovered in blood. The last thing we changed was editing the clips of me and clown, for the first bit we were going flick back and forth between clips of me and the clown, when we did this it did look right so instead we flicked backwards and forth between the clown and the titles, in my opinion i think this looked much better than what we first had planned. 

BBFC Ratings

U- Universal

• Suitable for all ages.
• Audience- usually 4 and over.
• Set within a positive moral framework.
• If something bad/scary happens, it is immediately counterbalanced with something good/happy.
• Horror scenes should be very mild and quick- shouldn't be able to cause anxiety with young children (should be reassuring).

 PG- Parental Guidance

• General viewing- some scenes may be unsuitable.
• Audience- 8 and over.
• Parents should be able to decide whether its suitable or not.
• Horror scenes shouldn't be too long or intense.
• Language should be mild.

12/12A

• Suitable for 12 years and over, but if a child under 12 wants to watch then an adult must be with them.
• Can have racist/ sexist characters in but the film must not say them being racist or sexist is right.
• Drugs misuse- inefficient and should not be glamorised.
• Language can be mild, but must not be frequent.
• Moderate violence but must not be detailed.

15

• Suitable for 15 years and over.
• No one younger than 15 can watch a 15 film in a cinema or buy a 15 rated video work.
• Strong threat and menace are permitted.
• A 15 rated film may include; strong violence, frequent strong language, portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence, discriminatory language or behaviour and drug taking.
• There may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory language.

18 

• Suitable for only adults.
• No one younger than 18 may watch an 18 film in a cinema or purchase an 18 film.
• 18 films include the following; very strong violence, frequent strong language and/or very strong language, strong portrayals of sexual activity, scenes of sexual violence, strong horror, strong blood and gore, real sex, discriminatory language and behaviour.

Editing Schedule

Step One
Firstly we will upload all of our filming clips onto Adobe Premiere Elements and select all of the videos that we will be using. After doing that we will upload all of the non diagetic sounds and audio effects we need. 

Step Two
We will then arrange all of the videos into a rough order of how we want them and then after doing this, wait for them all to render and then cut them into how short/long we want the certain clips to be.

Step Three
After editing the clips together we will then add effects to make our opening titles better and more effective. After doing that we will then start looking for fonts we would like to use for our title screens.

Step Four 
After adding in all of the title screens we decided that we will look through transitions to use in our opening titles to see if it makes it look better and if it looks better with transitions then we will then choose some to use. 

Step Five
After sorting out all the of the transitions and effects, we will then start adding in our audio effects and fitting them onto the right clips to make the opening titles creepier. If needed we will also adjust the size of the audio to the right length that we need it. 

Step Six
We will then add in our background music we chose and adjust the length to fit the opening titles. Then sort out anything that has gone wrong while editing to make sure it is too our expectations.

Step Seven
Lastly, we will watch over our finished opening titles a few times to see if there is anything that needs changing or improving. If so then we will change the things that need doing, if not we will proceed to save and upload our video to youtube.

Our Prezi for our Pitch

Our Prezi
This is the Prezi we used for our pitch.




Our Pitch
This is our pitch that we recorded for our opening scenes of our horror film.

Peer Assesment

Filming and Editing the Preminary Task

 

Playing around with the lights

Jess and Jemma deciding on the music to have in
the preliminary task



The lighting we decided on having

 Filming our preliminary task

 

The Fight

This is a short clip we made in class to help us get used to editing videos together.

Evaluation of our Preliminary Task

What have you learnt by doing this exercise?
I have learnt that when doing something like this again I need to make sure my acting is much better as it looks very awkward and doesn't look realistic at all in the preliminary task. I have learnt that I need to practise on my editing skills as the scenes cut very quickly and the music cuts off very quickly and I think it would have looked and sounded alot better and effective. I have also learnt that when you are filming things you have to plan alot more than expected as if not you waste a lot of time on deciding silly things.

What skills have you developed?
I have developed the skill to edit things together, as I used to have no idea how to do this but once I got taught how to edit I found it a lot easier as I did before. I still need to improve my editing skills quite a bit though as theyre not great yet.

What feedback have you recieved? (If you publish to YouTube then other members of the group can leave feedback as comments and a few screen shots of this could provide this evidence).
These are the comments that we got on our preliminary task.

How would you improve your preliminary task?
I could improve my preliminary task by improving the acting, making sure it looks more professional and realistic. I would improve the editing a lot more by making sure the scenes dont cut off quickly and it flows more. I could also improve by mkaing sure the music fades out and sounds better than it does now.

Preliminary Task

Analysis of the opening title scene of the Shaun of the Dead (Embedded Video)

 

How does the title sequence establish genre, character and narrative?

The title sequence shows that the film might have a sense of comedy too it by the music they have chosen to use as it sounds happy and seems like the kind of music that would be used in a comedy film. Its gives you an idea at the beginning that zombies may be involved in the film as at the end of the title sequence, the man that walks in looks and sounds like how a zombie would, before his face is shown. By the title sequence you can't really tell that the film is going to be a comedy horror, you would just think that it is a horror.

How does the title sequence attract an audience's interest?

From the title sequence the film seems like its going to be a fun film to watch and its seems like it would be a funny film, this may make the audience want to watch the film as it looks good by the title sequence. Also by the end of the title sequence it gives away that the film may be about zombies so people who like films like this may want to watch it.

What do you consider to be the target audience of the film and why?

I think the target audience of the film would be people who are 15 and above, as there is some violence involved in the film so it may not be suitable for people under the age of 15. The film would be aimed at people that enjoy watching comedy horrors, as that is what the film is. It would be aimed more at the groups C2, D and E as they would be the type of people to watch a film like this.

Who had produced the film and how is that evident in the title sequence?

Shaun of the Dead was produced by Nira Park, but the title sequence doesn't include this information so you wouldn't know.

Analysis of the opening scenes of Silent Hill: Revelation 3D

Film Schedule for Preliminary Task

Analysis of a horror films opening titles

The Conjuring

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-conjuring/

Whilst watching the opening titles of the conjuring I felt very on edge as the music that was used to go over top of the opening titles we're very creepy and it felt like something scary was going to pop up at any time. In the opening titles, they used black and white images, this made it all a bit more creepier as the images looked more old and haunted.

They use a projecter to place all the pictures and writing on, this gives a more creepy atmosphere and gives you an idea that it is set in the older days because noone really uses projecters these days. It looks more scary on some of the pictures because the writing is covering their faces so it looks like it is targeting the people who the pictures are of.

You can't really analyse the makeup of the characters in the opening scene because you can't see anyones face, this gives a more creepy sense because you don't know who is turning the pages, so it could be the bad guy in the film.

Planning our Preliminary Task

This is a sped up version of the lesson where we were deciding what we was going to do for our preliminary task, at first our group decided that we was going to do a horror themed preliminary task, so we made a mood board on horror to show it was going to be. This was the mood board our group made:

 

After making a mood board we has to dicuss about where we would film our preliminary task, so we wrote down some notes on paper on where we would film it and why, this is what we wrote down:

 

 

When we had finished planning out what we would do for location and for our theme, we then decided that it would take too much time doing a horror, so we then came up with a more simple idea and came up that we would do a drama instead. We wrote out a quick script of what the characters would say and then picked who out of our group would be acting in the task, we then chose me and Jessica to do the acting. To keep things simple, we decided we would stay in the theatre to film our preliminary task because it would go well with the mise en scene. We then went on to filming our task, which I will present to you in another on of my blogs.



Feedback Form- Invitctus Homework

Feedback Form- Mean Girls Homework

 

Invictus Homework

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location Analysis

What factors do you need to consider when selecting a location?

• Weather 
• Time of location
• Safety
• Permission

What could this location be used for?

• A wedding- Comedy/Romance/Drama.
• A funeral- Drama/Horror.
• A christening- Romance/Comedy.

How could this location be used to emphasise a genre/mood?

It could:

• Make you happy.
• Make you laugh.
• Make you scared.
• Be mysterious, dark and gloomy.
• Be happy, funny, jolly.

Compare two genres and explain how this location could be adapted for both

• Romance- high key lighting, happy atmosphere, a wedding, happy music.
• Horror- low key lighting, dark, scary, creepy music.

Mise En Scene Analysis- Mean Girls

The mean girls screenshot we got to analyse showed a lot and gave away clues about the characters and where the movie was set. I analysed the picture of the people outside of the school, about to do P.E . You can tell they're all about to do P.E because the way they are dressed, as they are all wearing shorts and a gym top.

The screenshot we got is the first scene a that the 'popular' girls (named the plastics) are introduced. By the clothes Karen is wearing you can tell that she if very confident within herself, knowing she has a good body and no one would judge her because of it because she is one if the plastics. Regina is getting carried in by a group of boys, this suggests she is the leader of the group of girls as the two other girls, Gretchen and Karen, didn't get carried in.

The picture is a long shot, to show the popular girls compared to everyone else, and how they're completely different to the other people in the school. The scene has high key lighting, this might be to show that this scene is early on in the day and that they're at school. The light is mostly focused on the popular girls as they want to show off what they are all like early on in the film. 

Things to remember!

In our lessons we have been discussing in our groups what we need to remember when doing our preliminary task. We also looked at some examples on you tube of other peoples preliminary tasks to help us see how other people made mistakes and too make sure them mistakes don't happen when we do ours. Me and my group came up with a list on 'things to remember', these are the things we came up with:

• Follow the requirements of the preliminary task well (make sure the actors open a door, cross a room, sit down and exchange a few lines with another character).
• Use the 180 degree rule and do it correctly.
• Make sure the sound, make sure the audience will be able to hear what we are saying clearly and make sure it isn't too loud.
• Have good lighting, use either high key lighting or low key lighting (depending on what suits the genre best).
• Put the shots together so they flow well and go with the genre too (e.g. quick transitions for a drama or a horror).
• Use match on action.
• Make sure the camera is stable and doesn't isn't wobbly.
• Don't use too many camera angles as it may become confusing to the audience and could break the 180 degree rule.
• Make sure the mise en scene is correct and that it fits to the storyline.
• Have continuity during the whole of the preliminary task.

Sound Analysis- Shaun of the Dead

We watched the part of the film where they was all fighting in the pub. In this scene they use music to build up tension, when all the zombies are outside, trying to get into the pub. In one part of the scene when they are trying to get the zombies away, a song starts playing from the jukebox, this adds humour to the scene and is also contrapuntal sound because it doesn't really connect with what is happening in the scene.

When the song by queen is being played, it is diegetic sound because the people who are in the scene can hear it. When the song stops it then goes into non-diegetic sound, because the actors cant hear what is being played.In the bit of the scene where the woman pulls her sleeve, they use sound effects to make everything seem more scary and dramatic. Throughout the scene the music builds up and then suddenly stops, this adds more effect to the scene


The scene what I analysed- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB98-NOO9Ug

Sound Terminology

In this lesson we talked about how sound can create a meaning in a film/ tv show. Some of the things that was said were:

• It creates emotion and can also create tension within the audience.
• It can sometimes help you understand the film/ tv show more.
• Sets the time period.
• It can make the film more interesting to watch.
• It can show the emotions of the characters.
• Parallels the action (e.g. fast music in action scenes and slow music in romantic scenes).
• It can help with the character representation/ identification.

We also learnt about the meaning of key words to do with sound terminology.

Soundtrack- this is the recorded sound element of a theme.
Theme music/tune- A recurrent melody.
Sound effects- Sounds other than dialogue or music added artificially.
Ambient sound- buzz and/or surrounding sounds.
Dialogue- speech.
Voice over- narration in a film not accompanied by a synchronised image of the speaker forming the words.
Direct Sound- when characters speak directly to the camera i.e. the audience.
Diegetic Sound- any sound that has an on screen source and belongs to the world of the film.
Non Diegetic Sound- any sound that does not have an on screen and characters on screen do not hear it (voice overs, music)
Sound Bridges- sound/s that continue from one shot to another. They help create a smooth transition from one shot to another. In this way the sound is said to be enhancing the continuity of the film.
Parallel sound- sound that complements the the image track. Sound and image seem to reflect each other.
Contrapunctual Sound- sound that does not fit with the image track (e.g. insidious and tiptoe through the tulips)

Representation

Representation is the way that media re-presents a person/ event. The media can make someone look either really good or really bad. There is three types of representation these are, stereotypes, archetypes and counertypes.

Media uses stereotypes so the audience will instantly understand them. Stereotypes is often reffered to 'visual shortcuts'. People repeat stereotypes so ofen so that we think the stereotype is normal or true.


Archetypes are the ultimate stereotype. For example, people from Essex are usually seen as 'dumb' and 'fake', but in real life they could be completely different.


Countertypes are a representation that challenges tradition stereotypical assosiations of groups, people or places.

Mise En Scene

Mise En Scene
- To do with the visuals within a scene (what you can see).
- A French term meaning what is put into a scene/ frame. 
- Visual information in front of the camera.
- Made up of key elements.

Key Elements of Mise En Scene
- Setting and Props.
- Costumes, hair and make up.
- Facial expressions and body language.
- Lighting.
- Colour.
- Positioning of characters and objects within a frame. 

The Golden Rules

Rule One

If you are using Prezi or Microsoft powerpoint to present your lessons/ what you have learnt, try not to over use it as there are many other ways to presenting your work.

Rule Two
Be as creative as you can with your blog, play around with different fonts, add videos, etc.

Rule Three
Try and use a variety of technology in your blog.

Rule Four
Use as many different media forms as you can.

Rule Five
Don't copy other peoples blogs, use your own work and don't just copy it off other people or the internet.

Rule Six
Make sure your evaluations are well thought out.

Rule Seven
Try and present what you have learnt in every lesson, to show people that you are understanding what you're learning about.

Rule Eight
Make sure your blog is easy to navigate through and it is easy to find every thing you have written about.  

Camera Angles

In this lesson we took pictures and videos on our phones of the different camera angles, these are the camera angles that I pictured/videoed. 

Tracking Shot

Close Up

Extreme Close Up

High Angle

Birds Eye View

Tilt

Medium Shot

Long Shot

Low Angle

Extreme Long Shot

Zoom