VS
When we first edited our preliminary task, it was the first time that we used Adobe Premiere Elements which meant that our editing wasn't the best that it could have been, and that the editing was very basic. The shots were edited very quickly and the shots of me and Jess talking end very quickly as we wasn't used to using this software. We didn't use very many camera shots, we only used mid shots, long shots, over the shoulder shots and the 180 degree rule. Looking back at our preliminary task now, I can pick out lots of things that could have been improved on, lukcily when it came to editing our main task, we had had alot more practise of using Adobe Premiere Elements so we knew more of what we were doing.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In the time that I have been using editing software I have came across many different softwares. At first I didn't have a clue how to use Adobe Premiere Elements, but after practising to use it became a lot more easier to use as I found my way around it and found everything that we needed to make our main task as good as We could.
We had a few technical difficulties when editing our film together but then after a while we found a way around it and found out how to make our problems better.
One of the other pieces of equipment that we had to get used to using was the camera we would be using. At first this was also difficult but after filming a few clips we figured out how to get the sound going and got the hang of using it.When filming our clips we always had to consider where to place the camera, for example, for the clip of the clown jumping up the kitchen window we had to make sure that the camera wasn't visible one bit, this was difficult as you could see it in the reflection but in the end we figured it out as got it in the right position we needed to out it in so you couldn't see it.
Whilst editing our final task, I developed many skills when using Adobe Premiere Elements. I learnt how to add in music and change the volume to make it higher and lower, and how to make it fade in and out. I also learnt how to speed the clips and slow them down, I learnt my skills with very little help so I think the editing of the final clip was good considering that we learnt how to use Adobe Premiere Elements from scratch. I think I could still improve on my editing but I still think it has improved a lot from the first thing I edited on the software.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Music and Sound
We played a creepy soundtrack throughout the majority of our opening titles, this would then give the audience a clue that it is going to be a horror film and that something bad is going to happen. To build the tension up we also included creepy music to show that something was going to happen to the woman that was home alone. We also included the laugh of the clown to show that he is out to cause danger to people and to show he is getting close and closer. We decided to use music to build up tension because then the audience would then want to watch to find our what happens to the innocent woman.
Similarities to other movies
We decided to link parts of our movies to other clips that we liked in movies that created a creepy atmosphere. We liked the part in Scream when they focus on the sharp kitchen knife to make it seem more scary, so we used a similar clip in our film, when we filmed the woman putting the kitchen knife back into the stand, to make people get the idea that something bad will happen. We also liked the idea of the scenes in IT when the balloons pop in peoples faces so we used this idea in ours too, we just didn't use fake blood in the balloons because we figured out that it would have took us too long to get the correct shot of it.
Genre Conventions
We use a lot of genre conventions in our film. But the main one is focusing on Trunco the clown, as he is the main evil character and we want people to know that he is dangerous and is our to cause harm. We used the idea of a clown as the main character as clowns are usually seen as innocent and friendly, but our clown is completely different to that stereotype so that's what makes our film so interesting and this would be a good selling point to our film as our audience would want to find out why the clown has such a big aim to go out and kill.
Questionnaire
We did a questionnaire in our groups at the beginning of our main task to research into what type of horrors people enjoyed the most and what sort of age group we should aim our film too. On the left is the results that we got back from our questionnaire. From these results we then developed our plan for our horror and that's how we came up with our idea.
Gender and Age Rating
We decided that we would aim our film at both genders, but we discussed that it would be watched more by men because women are usually put off of horror films because of the gore and jumpy parts. Our age rating for our film is 15+ so the people watching our film would be 15 and over. We discussed that it should be 15+ because it doesn't have that much gore in it, its just mainly jumpy bits, and this film would attract mainly teenagers. You find these days that teenagers mainly like to watch horrors together whilst they're having sleepovers with their friends or at the cinemas. Also most of the people that took our questionnaire were in the age rand of 16-18 so we figured it would be mainly popular with this age range.
In our opening titles we tried to make our clown, Trunco, quite similar to the clown, Pennywise in the film IT as we thought that he came across as a very threatening, scary character, and thats how we wanted our clown to come across as we wanted our film to be as scary as we could make it. The difference between Trunco and Pennywise is that Pennywise looks much more scary than Trunco, and that's simply because we didn't have the skills and makeup to make Joe look that scary and creepy, but we still based the look of Trunco around Pennywise and tried to make him look quite similar.
There is also a few differences between Trunco and Pennywise. One of these differences is that in our film, Trunco kills mainly older people and goes for them whereas in the film IT Pennywise captures and kills little kids.
Pennywise is often recognised by playing clown music or doing his clown laugh when he's around. We thought this was very effective and included this into our film, but instead of playing the music or laugh when the clown is around, we played it when the clown had done his damage to show that he has been there to cause harm to everyone and that he has left his mark there.
We decided to do a film based around an evil clown character as clowns are usually seen as innocent and something that is associated with children as they are usually very friendly. That's why we chose to use a clown as our main character as it goes against the stereotypes and makes it alot more creepier as clowns are supposed to be nice, not going around killing people for no reason.
