When creating our short film we were trying to create a score which created tension for our audience. We had Garage Band to create the score ourselves however, we found a good score which we thought would be more effective in creating tension that we thought we would add it as our sound track. Although, we did use Garage Band to create part of our sound track.
Also, since this sound track was not ours we knew that we would need to get permission of the maker to see that it was available to us, so we did indeed contact the creator who gave us permission to use the soundtrack, this our email confirming we did have permission to use the soundtrack:
Friday, 15 April 2011
Planning: Score
Evaluation Part IV: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
With the new media technologies it was so much easier to gather research, plan and evaluate work, as well as it being easier in the process of creating the film. It was all made easier as it was all available in one place – the internet.
Research:
When doing research media technologies were extremely helpful. I had many programs to store information from my research online, where I could put notes and pictures to show research.
Using YouTube: Here I was able to find other short films and research the types of short films there were and how they were made.
Using Blogger: I was able to upload the information and photos’ I had found and analyse them.
Using Google: I was able to gather information which later I would use for research and upload to my blogger.
Planning:
Planning was made easier as I could create flat plans of the ancillary tasks using programs like PhotoShop, which had all the abilities I needed to create the flat plan.
Using PhotoShop: Creating flat plans and drafts of ancillary tasks.
Using Word: Creating step outlines and plans of what we were going to do when filming.
Evaluation:
Media technologies made life easier when evaluating my work, as all my work was available in one place (blogger) I could see all of it more easily which made it easier to evaluate, also using other programs I was also able to produce my evaluation more effectively, using vimeo and final cut pro together to create a short film of audience feedback.
Using Windows Live Writer: I used this to write up my evaluation and this was able to publish the work I did onto my blog.
Using FinalCut Pro: I used this to create our audience feedback and produce a short film of what people thought.
Using Vimeo: I used this to upload our audience feedback as it was made into a film, this was embedded onto my blog.
Construction:
Media technologies made it easier for us to develop, film, edit and share our film short film. We had software which we could use to edit our film and include a sound track over the top, so there was ambient sounds and also the sound from the sound track which creates tension. The technology we had meant it wasn’t too complex for us, even though we were inexperienced with the software, to create a short film and distribute it.
FinalCut Pro: This is what we used to edit our film together and put together each scene, we also put a sound track on here which we created on Garage Band.
Garage Band: We used this to create part of the soundtrack of our film.
YouTube: This is where we uploaded our short film for audiences to see and share.
Vimeo: Here we also uploaded our short film for audiences to see and share.
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Evaluation: Part I; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When making our horror film we tried to stick as much as possible to Nick Lacey’s schema of genre. We did not challenge the conventions of genre as we did not have as much time or as large of a budget to be able to pull this off with maximum effect.
Character:
When we were creating a character we decided to appeal to our audience by having a character which can relate to the audience. The character is the typical character you would have in a horror film, he is alone, scared and doesn’t know what to do or what is going on. We were trying to stick to typical conventions of a character in a horror film. The character has no dialogue, in doing this we were hoping to gain tension through the background music and have it build up that way and to show the horror more clearly through the facial expressions of the character, also through the lack of dialogue it is less evident of the inexperience of the actor as he does not have to say anything..
Setting:
Single location. Normal semi-detached house, dark at night. We chose to do this as we thought it would be the best way to shoot a horror film, the reason for this is is so that the audience can relate to the character and the setting as this is a standard house for an average person, and this will scare the audience further as it will allow the audience to think that this could happen to them. Again, we tried to stick to the stereotypical conventions of genre, having a dark setting which creates a tense atmosphere through the setting and the music.
Iconography:
We used a torch as our iconography to show that this film is a horror film, this would show the darkness of the film and through this we were able to create more of a tense atmosphere for the audience. Also, I used a shot of the torch when it came to making the poster, this again was to allow the audience to clearly identify the genre of this film, horror.
Narrative and Theme:
Considering narrative we followed Vladimir Todorov’s theory of narrative, having an equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium, we stuck to this as we thought this would be the best possible narrative structure for our film, and would make it easier during filming because we had some guide lines to follow, which it did. However, we did not follow Propp’s theory of characters, we only had one character so it wouldn’t be possible for us to follow this theory, so we challenged this theory, we did however have a ‘hero’ in our film, our ‘hero’ could be classed as our main character ‘Joe’ as he would be considered brave for trying to face the entity himself, being brave, a stereotypical trait of a hero. Also, we could have the entity classed as a ‘villain’ but however we did not have any of the other roles so like I said previously we could not follow this theory.
We followed two specific themes which had been set by us, we had to include technology and time somehow within our short film.
We introduced the theme of time through the change of the day, starting with having light shining into the house showing afternoon, then dusk when we see Joe in his bed and then followed by when the audiences sees Joe waking up, we can clearly see that this is now night as the setting has now switched to being a dark setting and this is when we see the introduction of our technology aspect.
To show technology in our film we used a torch, we didn’t know how else we could introduce technology in our horror and we believed this would be the best way as it would create tension due to not everything can be seen on screen and the audience doesn’t know what is there. This also gives a sense of mystery for the audience as it makes them wonder what is actually haunting the character, while creating a sense of fear.
Editing:
When editing we stuck with the typical conventions of editing due to lack of budget and the lack of experience with the editing software. We stuck with the regular typical cuts you would find as we did not have time to experiment with the different types of cuts we could of used. Although, overall I am pleased with how the cuts have worked out, because they do show a passage of time, and during the tense scenes the fast cuts create and build tension well for the audience, as we learnt in the audience feedback.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Research: Audience Results
Below is the results from our survey. It has enabled us to identify the type of film we should do in order to capture the largest possible audience.
Survey results
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Research: Audience
Our group created a survey online, we posted this through the social networking sites ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’ through a link. We did this as we found that our main target audience were on these sites, or at least the majority of them, so we thought this would be the best way to distribute it to our audience. Due to our lack of budget this was also the cheapest way to get a response from our audience as it did not cost us anything. We are hoping from this research to discover what is the most popular genre among our audience, and the best way to advertise. Through our research we will decide how everything will be. The audience we are researching are aged between 15-25, these are also the target age for our short film.
The link to our survey is;
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HZ9LDGT
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