2013GeorgeH

Welcome To My Blog

2013-05-06T06:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog, here you will find all of my research, planning and videos leading up to my final film, Micro drama, Swede and also Primarily Task. It has information on past previous coursework, analysis of film and film openings as well as information on British Cinema including the contrast in the two Film Production Companies Warp and Working Title.

Final Cut

2013-05-04T11:59:00.002-07:00

Here is our Final Film Opening The Asylum

Evaluation Question Q1 Slasher Conventions

2013-05-04T11:02:00.002-07:00

When looking at our own film we took into account a number of different conventions we had seen in previous slasher films and put them into our opening.

Crow sounds

Our first convention was the sound of the crows as heard in the opening of The last house on the left we felt this would link in well as the patient escaped the mental asylum as the sound of crows screeching is recognised with horror which is why it links well with our opening. As we wanted the audience to have some anticipation to what was going to happen.

Rock Music

Another convention linked in with sound was the rock music that we used. The music comes from Red Hot Chili Peppers - Cant Stop. Rock music was used in The Return of The Living Dead which is why we used to use this convention. It also links in with the death as the music stops as the 'scream queen' is killed.

POV shot

The POV camere shot was another convention we used however this convention has not been used many times in films we have seen apart from Halloween which is where we got our shot form as our killer hides behind the bushes to give the audience a sense of view from the killer

False Scare

The convention of a false scare is not just apparent in most slasher films but in almost any horror film as well. The false scare brings up the audiences sense of anticipation to then relieve them to make the real scare of a much more significance to the audience.

Male Gaze Theory

The final girl was a new addition to our film opening, the convention of a scream queen is in a lot of slasher movies. We took our convention fromNightmare On Elm Street the scream queen was Heather Langenkamp who played Nancy. To anchor our final girl we used revealing clothes and made it apparent to our audience that she was sexually active.

Scream Queen

With our final girl we also played up to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. She believes that audiences have to view characters form the view of a heterosexual male. Our camera lingers on parts of the female body in context of a males reaction. We used this to appeal to a wider male audience.

Weapon

We took our convention of the weapon from Halloween the iconic kitchen knife, because its nothing out of the un-ordinary it is just a standard kitchen knife, but it becomes a lot more scarier when it is put in to context of killing someone which is the effect we tried to achieve.

Key slasher genre conventions Conclusion

As our film categories into the slasher genre below is a Vodcast on the overview of the slasher genre. It will cover some of the key conventions.

Exposition
Like psycho provides an exposition for the audience so did we. The time and date and the setting for our film which isn't included in all slasher genre films.

Narrative enigma
Narrative enigma is very commonly used in a lot of slasher films, Halloween is a key example as a POV shot i used to hide the killers identity. Which is what we did to a certain extent as it was just the opening we hid our killer identity for a short while in the first few shots to create a sense of anticipation for the audience however we did break this slasher convention because we showed our killer.

Weapon
Weapons are undoubtedly one of the key Signifiers for a slasher film which is why we chose a knife for our weapon

Location
We felt that the location would be a key part of our opening which is why we chose our first few shots to be filmed at a mental asylum. This is because we wanted our audience to follow our preferred reading, that a patient has escaped from this asylum and is seeking his revenge. For example Hell Night which is filmed in some woods.

Scream Queen
In our film we decided a key slasher convention we had to include was a scream queen. A scream queen is a girl in the slasher films who screams a lot, she is the one who is binary opposites with the final girl. Unlike the final girl the scream queen is always signified to be a rebellious character through uses of mise en scene such as smoking. They are often portrayed to be a sexually active blonde character with revealing clothes. For our film a friend played the scream queen for us. To signify this she was blonde for starters, she wore revealing clothes and shes the one who leads her boyfriend to the bedroom.

Narrative
In most slasher film openings it goes with Todorovs theory of equilibrium, this is that the film starts with equilibrium it is all calm etc. then it gets into dis-equilibium with a murder or disruption of some sort. It then goes to new equlibrium after disequilibrium. Our film however was different and was more inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre as it starts with dis-equilbrium into equilibrium.

We also went with the slasher convention of using narrative enigma to hide the killers identity, we did this mainly by POV shots, completely inspired by Halloween as Michael Myers approaches the house, which is exactly what our character is doing.

IdentsIn all of the films i have watched there is at least 1 ident at the start of the film. The ident is almost always animated or has a moving part, if not it is just plain text. The film i have seen which uses just the plain text is Halloween with dimension films this uses just a simple ident, the most simple i have seen in all the films i have watched. First of all we included idents which are common in every single film whether it falls into the slasher genre or not. Most idents are the company logo name and brand image however we decided to theme one of idents for the slasher genre itself. To do this we used a San serif font to show that the film would be a horror of some sort and in this case a slasher film.

Editing and Sound

There are many editing conventions we used in our opening. One of the main conventions we used is Laura Maulvey's Theory of the male gaze, we used editing to focus on Heather's legs and show that she is the archetype scream queen. We also used editing to show that it is a POV shot of the killer as we made it a circular view of everything so you can just see through what would be the eye. We also used shaky camera techniques to make it more realistic when walking etc. We Also signified the protagonist by this POV shot as he is stalking the house, with a shot of him in the window. In all the slashers i observed this, The slashers signify the protagonist by them stalking the Victim using things like POV shots.

Another editing technique we used is cross cutting, from the killer to the Dr at the start of our opening, this created a lot of tension. The panic editing makes the viewer feel more uneasy. this is used in all the slashers i observed. The classic example of this is the psycho shower scene when the did numerous shots within a very short space of time to create more panic.

We used continuity editing to make the opening much more flowing by using traditional techniques like the 180 degree role and match on action.

In our film, at the beginning we provide exposition, as our film is inspired largely by Halloween we felt that we should take inspiration from the film. Therefore we provided the location at the start of our film opening saying 'High Royds' this was to introduce the film and to give the audience a sense of where the location is.

We then took another inspiration from Halloween and provided another bit of exposition with providing the times/dates of when the scenes are. This also gives the viewer a sense of time and information. As the film is not continuous exposition is needed for the viewer.

Here is the titles of the film SAW it is a sequence of titles after the short introduction, just like our film. it has the effect of running blood down the screen then has the letters in blood like effect, this is the kind of inspiration that gave us to do our titles and what our titles are going to look like.

In the titles of Halloween it introduces two of the main characters, with their name in big letter the 'in'. this is because the names of these two are either recognized or are main parts in the film. As me and Curtis Tiplady are both recognized names in our media society from doing the swede and the micro-drama, we are going to do the same as this

Evaluation Question Q2 Representations

2013-05-04T11:02:00.001-07:00

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Camera man/Director: George Holmes, Jake Wilson

Age

All our actors/actresses are teenagers aged from 16 - 17. However we wanted the audience to feel like the Dr and his girlfriend were older in their late 20's, this was to appeal to a larger audience yet still appeal to the older audience.

Location

All of our characters are from north of England which isn't popular and very weird for Americans as most British films are set down south of England Therefore our audience may not be in america. However The slasher genre is a very unique genre as people don't seem to care as much about what country/county it is set in they just like the gore and the thrill they seem to get from watching it! So that's why were not overly bothered about where the film was set as long as the locations were good, we felt it could appeal to any audience. Never- the-less if a big budget was given to us, america or southern England would probably be where we chose as more people recognize these actors and scenic locations.

Characters

Micheal Myers

Michael Myers

Peter is a mental asylum patient who has escaped from the Asylum in which the doctor works. He then comes back to kill his doctor and his wife in his own home. Peter wears a lab coat stolen from the asylum and wears this throughout our opening for the effect and it looks good. influenced by the slasher film Halloween and the patient and the main killer in the film Michael Myers who has also escaped from a mental asylum.

Dr Loomis

The Dr is also very influenced by Halloween and Dr Loomis. He is a Dr at the mental asylum who looked after Peter. He made peters life hell inside the asylum, then killed by Peter himself. Dr Loomis was also Michaels Dr, getting killed in the process just like our Halloween inspired film.

Heather is the Scream queen in our film. Like your stereotypical scream queen she wore very little clothes, also revealing clothes, shes blonde and most importantly in our film opening she is sexually active as there is a sex scene in our opening to show this. We had a scene in the opening in which the scream queen gets killed, this was very much inspired by psycho as the same blonde scream gets killed in the bathroom. Our character heather was very much inspired by the psycho scream queen as she is blonde and sexually active. The bathroom being even more so.

Characters in our Opening

Curtis - 'Peter'

Reasons for:

- Young

- Good actor for an important role

This character kills the scream queen and the main character, we used narrative enigma to keep his identity hidden until he kills his first victim. He is an escaped patient form a mental asylum seeking revenge on his 'corrupt' doctor.

Curtis represented Michael Myers from Halloween not because of appearance but because of his weapon. However, my costume didn't follow the convention of Michael Myers as i wore a white lab coat.

This is the killer running from the Asylum. The killers costume, is inspired by the patients escape to anchor that the character is a patient. He is wearing the Dr's lab coat and was the reason he was able to escape by disguise. He wears this lab coat throughout the opening.

Jake - Dr. Cruger

Reasons for:

- Looks like a doctor

- Reasonable actor for important role

- looks smart

This is the main character and is killed last by the killer. He is in a relationship with our scream queen his job role is that he works at the hospital where the killer escaped from.

Jake was the victim in our film opening, which is typical of representations. Also he was playing the role of the Dr because he looked the most appropriate out of him and Curt. He dresses reasonably smart like a Dr and has a nice house, which signifies a Dr's high wage pay. On the right is a typical character who dies after the girl.

Heather- Dr's Wife (scream queen)

- Blonde

- Takes drama for an AS level

This character is the doctors girlfriend, she plays the scream queen so she is killed first.

Heather represented Marion Crane from Psycho because she was the scream queen for our film.Here we have the bottom half of what our scream queen was wearing, we asked her to wear shorts as this shows a lot of skin especially with the top she was wearing as well. This was used as it is very stereotypical of the scream queen archetype to be blonde and wear revealing clothes.

Heather Represented the stereotypical scream queen, which is just like the archetype Janet Leigh off of the slasher psycho.

Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective.

Source: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rbeach/teachingmedia/module5/2.htm

Factors which influenced our representations:

Our primary target audience

As 15 - 24 is our target audience, this influenced our representations, we used an all teen cast and used slasher conventions such as the scream queen.

Our secondary target audience

We have many intertextual links in our film which link to much older films that our primary target audience will be unaware of.

Our BBFC rating

This influenced our representations because we obviously weren't going to include any representations which would exceed our rating, if so our rating would have to be raised.

Typical slasher films

Some of our representations come from slasher films as we used similar conventions to the ones we had seen in previous slasher films.

Below is a video of us talking about the Key Points of Narrative Representations.

Evaluation Question Q3 Distributor

2013-05-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Distributer (Definition)

"The distribution of a film (or movie) is the process through which a movie is made available to watch for an audience by a film distributor. This task may be accomplished in a variety of ways; for example, with a theatrical release, a home entertainment release (in which the movie is made available on DVD-video or Blu-ray Disc) or a television program for broadcast syndication and may include digital distribution"

(This was taken from Wikipedia)

Five Useful Hyperlinks

Distributors are companies whose job it is to make sure media products (such as films, music and other commercial items) get a wide release and are available to buy. Their job is in advertising and persuading cinemas that their film should be shown.With our film being created on zero budget (also known as Indie) we would need to find a distribution company that wont be too expensive, so this rules out any big film companies for example Universal Pictures.

Taking the films i have analysed into account we have evidence that their is still a target audience for film of a slasher or a sub-genre of horror therefore we believe our film could fit into the market and be successful.

We could choose Warp Films as they are a UK based company and produce low budget films which are also very successful. Donkey Punch and Dead Man's Shoes are good examples of what Warp has produced, very low budget (compared to the Big 6) yet they can still make a good profit. However our film has a budget even much lower than this small indie company; therefore it does seem a bit too far away for us. Even with a budget of less than £50 there are still examples of films getting into cinemas with Colin; a £45 film which made it to the big screen, so it is a possibility this could happen to ours.

After research on the internet and from my own knowledge we found out that the best choice for a distribution company would be Optimum Releasing, giving the fact that we have no budget to work with. Optimum Releasing is a fairly low budget British Distributor company which is ideal for our film and would fit perfectly into this company. They release over 200 films a year and are one of the most prominent distributors in the UK independent film and world cinema market.

The genre for our film is Slasher, Title Name (Unknown). Our film is a very low budget indie film and there are no headline actors involved. However, the film does mirror some of the main slasher conventions which we have researched previously. To mention an example we plan to use a san seriff font for our title which is common in many slasher films such asScream and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Our film will be similar to the film MadHouse.

Top Ten film distributors in the UK (2012)

1	Skyfall	Sony	101.0
2	The Dark Knight Rises	Warner Bros	56.3
3	Marvel's Avengers Assemble	Walt Disney	51.9
4	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	Warner Bros	40.8
5	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2	EOne Films	35.5
6	Ted	Universal	30.3
7	Ice Age: Continental Drift	20th Century Fox	30.1
8	The Amazing Spider-Man	Sony	25.9
9	Prometheus	20th Century Fox	24.7
10	The Hunger Games	Lionsgate	23.8

Sony more than doubled its 2011 share of 7.35% with an enormous 17.9% share in 2012, with 'Skyfall' accounting for half its total take.
20th Century Fox came in a close second with 39 titles hauling £191.2m for a 16.3% market share.
Last year's number one, Warner Bros, fell to third with £147m, a 12.5% market share. £56.3m of this total was brought in by 'The Dark Knight Rises'.
Overall, the UK box office grossed £1.172b in 2012, narrowly ahead of 2011’s £1.130b total.

Source:http://www.cinemauk.org.uk/facts-and-figures/admissions/top-10-uk-films-2004-2012/

Skyfall Cover

Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)

Budget
$200m

Gross (Worldwide)
$981m

Distributors

Columbia Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)
Sony Pictures International (2012) (UK) (theatrical)

The Hobbit Cover

The Hobbit (Peter Jackson, 2012)

Budget

$180m

Gross (Worldwide)

$600m

Distributors

Warner Bros. Entertainment (2012) (UK) (theatrical)
Warner Bros. Pictures (2012) (USA) (theatrical)

Friday the 13th (1980, Sean S. Cunningham)

Budget

$550,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$5,816,321 (USA) (11 May 1980) (1 Screen)

Gross

$5,816,321 (USA) (11 May 1980)

$39,754,601 (USA)

AUD 2,202,000 (Australia)

$853,857 (Germany)

SEK 1,328,976 (Sweden)

Weekend Gross

$5,816,321 (USA) (11 May 1980) (1 Screen)

Distributors

Paramount

Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)

Budget

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$13,766,814 (USA) (15 February 1991) (1,497 Screens)

£292,592 (UK) (6 June 1991) (1 Screen)

Gross

$130,742,922 (USA) (30 June 2012)

Distributers

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2009) (UK)
Orion Pictures Corporation (1991) (USA)

Last House On The Left Facebook Group

All distributors use marketing tools which is what we may plan to do for our film. These techniques are used to promote a film. These can consist of posters, websites, social networking and trailers to name a few.
Examples:

Skyfall Website

Scream Cover

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Cover

There seems to be repetition with all of the slasher genre posters, they mainly consist of dark colours and titles using a san serif font, this provides an exposition to the audience that the film they are looking at is going to be a horror of some sort for example if you compared the Skyfall cover with the Scream cover, the exposition from both would provide the genre signifier.

The distributers above would not realistically distribute our film, therefore i am going to look at more low budget

distributers.

Eden Lake Poste

Eden Lake (James Watkins, 2008)

Gross:

$5,824 (USA) (2 November 2008)

Production Co:

Rollercoaster Films, Aramid Entertainment Fund

Distributers:

Optimum Releasing (2008) (UK) (theatrical)

Weinstein Company, The (2008) (USA) (theatrical)

Eden Lake Poster

Donkey Punch (Oliver Blackburn, 2008)

Budget:

$700k (estimated)

Production Companies:

EM Media, Film4, Madman Entertainment

Distributers:

Optimum Releasing (2008) (UK) (theatrical)
Magnet Releasing (2009) (USA) (theatrical)

Realistically i feel that optimum releasing (Studio Canal) would be the right distributors for our film because our budget is very narrow and they have distributed relatively low budget films before.

The estimated budget for our film

Our film is a low budget indie film so it is impossible to have a well known distributer to fund our project. However, our budget would be extremely low anyway. We have no such thing as providing an actors salary, funding large equipment ect.
The things we are planning to include that will need funding consist of:

Laboratory Coat (1)
Fake blood
An ID

So in total our film will cost under £10 to be realistic therefore our film is a really low budget film

Our film poster

Marketing tools we could use

Almost every film has a film poster which is why we chose to create our own. We anchored the slasher genre through our colour scheme with the red, white and black we also used a san serif font which is specific to our slasher genre.

Our trailer, again another marketing technique that all films use - not just specific to the slasher genre. We chose to make a teaser trailer to give our target audience a sense of anticipation for our full length film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Top Ten UK Film Distributors 2012

1. Sony: $336.4m (£209.9m) 17.9%

2. 20th Century Fox: $306.5m (£191.2m) 16.3%

3. Warner Bros: $235.5m (£147m) 12.5%

4. Universal: $219.3m (£136.8m) 11%

5. Walt Disney: $197.4m (£123.2m) 10.5%

6. eOne: $129.5m (£80.8m) 6.9%

7. Paramount: $125.8m (£78.5m) 6.7%

8. Lionsgate: $109.3m (£68.2m) 5.8%

9. Momentum: $82.1m (£51.2m) 4.3%

10. Entertainment Film Distributors: $59m (£36.8m) 3.1%

Below is a Vodcast or Our We Creating British Cinema. This links into the low budget film we have created which links into Warp as they create low budget films as they are an Indie Company who can not find fundings for films such as the "Big 6" do.

Evaluation Question Q4 Target Audience

2013-05-04T10:06:00.001-07:00

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our core target audience would be 15-21, and our secondary target audience would be 24-34. Our film is aimed towards the younger target audience but not primarily. I would say that our cast is reflective of our target audience.

I am going to split this in to sections between

age
gender
sexuality
social class
nationality
region
ethnicity
Physical ability/disability

Sexuality

In our film all of the characters we used are heterosexual. This is what is considered a normative representation. There was only one scene where we could anchor to the audience our characters sexuality which was where the scream queen leads the doctor to the bedroom.

Social Class

All our characters used in the opening are all shown to be of an equal class which fits into the C1 class however due to the fact that our film doesn't contain much dialogue at all it could be portrayed to be lower as it may be assumed that we aren't capable of using a complex challenging text. On the other hand our film is targeted towards teenagers so it is a presumably less wealthy audiencece.

Our film contains upper middle class characters which is signified again by the costumes we have chosen and how we directed our actors to act

Physical Ability/Disabilty

The film opening we have created only contains physical able characters, not because of choice but because there is no one disabled in our class. However, i think that we would have been able to fit a role in nicely. We didn't have any disabled friends or family which we could ask to act as the role of a disabled character.

Gender

Gender is a key theme in our production. The gender of our cast is highly signified through the way our characters dressed and acted, this is what we took into consideration whilst planning our film, for the costumes our characters would wear to signify their gender. All of our characters fit stereotypes, the doctor is a male which would fit the stereotype of the men being the workers and women being of the domestic role. Also the fact that males are more intelligent than women and earn more money than them without trying to play up to this stereotype it was signified heavily without us realising as the doctor is the one with the house and the car.

Binary opposites were also used the example is between the killer and the scream queen we included. The scream queen played up to her stereotype perfectly because this is what we wanted her to be like, the typical scream queen to signify this she wore short shorts, she was blonde and she was portrayed to be sexually active as well playing up to the male gaze theory, These clear qualities may also provide intertextuality with the audience as they are clearly recognisable with the archetype examples from previous slasher examples, this is a method we are hoping will help us reach our secondary target audience as a primary target audience may be unfamiliar with any past slasher films apart form any recent films. The killer is a male like in many slasher films the killer is male (Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger) Our killer portrays strength and masculinity when compared to the scream queen he overpowers her and the doctor.

Nationality and region

Like Warp another low budget indie film company they target a regional and national audience rather than an international audience. Which is just like us as we don't have the funds or the time to create a film up to the standards of Working Title as they employ many different methods to attract their audiences whether its through their genre or use of A listers.

Our film is set in West Yorkshire so we have initially targeted a regional audience. All of the characters in our production are from Yorkshire which is reflective on our target audience as they probably will be too. We hoped that our setting would anchor the region but if it doesn't the characters should due to the accents used.

Age:

Below are the Certificate pictures for age ratings in Britain.

	Universal	Suitable for all.
	Parental Guidance	General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children
	12 Accompanied/Advisory	Suitable for those aged 12 and older (cinema only); under 12s admitted, but only if accompanied by an adult
	12	Suitable for those aged 12 and older (VHS and DVD only)
	15	Suitable for those aged 15 and older
	18	Suitable for those aged 18 and older
	Restricted 18	Restricted to those aged 18 and older and only available at licensed cinemas and sex shops. The latter will not require a licence to sell R18 films

The BBFC guidelines for a 15 classification allows the following to appear in films:

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

drug taking

Our Film was rated 15 due to th fact we contain strong violence, portrayals of sexual activity. This gives the film a wider audience due to the fact it appeals more to 18-24 year olds as it is a more mature film which contains "sex and gore" which the younger generation are after. However even though this blocks out the audience of 12-15 the audience size is smaller in comparison to the wider audience appeal it gives as an 15. We still know that an audience of under 15 will still watch it, when it comes out on DVD etc so 15 was the best BBFC rating to choose.

Company Blog

We created a company blog for our target audience to view, from here you can find all three producers of the film blogs as well updates for the movie. We have not yet included information on the blog yet however will be later.

It can be found here - http://theasylum2013.blogspot.co.uk/

Here are a few examples of recent slasher films with the 15 rating:

Detention Prom Night Scream 4

(Joseph Khan, (Nelson McCormick, (Wes Craven,

2011) 2008) 2011)

Scream 4 DVD cover

Detention DVD cover

Prom Night DVD cover

We have rated our film as a 15 due to the fact that our film doesn't contain any explicit nudity, however it does contain sexual references and violence form the outset and throughout. There were a few things we just didn't include, such as the 'sex' scene and the killing of the victims.

Here is me explaining in conclusion the main key points of our Target Audience in a video.

Our primary audience: 15-25
Secondary audience: 26-35

We first of all went to Ben, who is in the age range of our target audience. We asked him to watch the video and give us some feedback on whats good and whats bad about our opening, this was to help us understand what our audience want and what we need to improve.

This is the feedback ben gave us:

Evaluation Question Q5 Mode of Address

2013-05-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a number of different methods to attract our audience, we looked at a number of different ways current distributors marketed their films and did the same effectively.
These are the methods we used:

Facebook

Facebook proved to be one of our key devices we would use when trying to attract our target audience. The main reason for this is due to nearly all of our target audience have Facebook. This was a way we could communicate with them. We could put up status' informing our target audiences further information. On the left is an example of how we would attract our audience through Facebook leaving our audience to like the video or add any of their own inputs which helped massively when we were releasing rough cuts as they suggested many different improvements. Facebook gave us the opportunity to communicate with a much wider number of people rather than our class mates which was very beneficial to us.

YouTube

YouTube is a worldwide known video streaming site as some members of my production team had used the resource previously it was an extremely useful resource to use. In contrast to using Facebook to address our primary audience, we used YouTube to address both primary and secondary, but our secondary audience were able to give us positive and negative feedback from this. We wanted to stay connected with as much of our audience as we could which is why we put up rough cuts regularly to keep our audience anticipating on our final cut.

Student interviews

We asked Students about our film and trailer to get there opinions and views on the videos and footage what could be improved and what they like. This helped us and was beneficial because we could learn from our mistakes.

Poster

This is our film poster for The Asylum we chose to show very little detail about the film itself. We included an image of the knife and the killer to signify the slasher genre. Also to signify the slasher genre we used a San serif font. As we have looked at previous slasher posters such as Psycho. We also went with the red and black which signifies horror. With our poster we stuck it up around our school to inform our target audience of our film.

Teaser Trailer

Rough Cuts

However, we used non marketing techniques to hook our audience in also these methods consisted of:

Narrative enigma
False Scare
POV's
Rock Music
Soundtrack
Intertextuality

Audience

The spectators or listeners assembled at a performance, for example, or attracted by a radio or television program.

Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/audience

Evaluation Question Q6 Technologies

2013-05-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

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

I've learnt about many different technologies and also learnt more about technologies that I previously know. I've learnt how to use Final Cut to successfully edit a product to a certain person's taste such as a young person would want a fast paced edit to keep them entertained whereas an older person may like it slower. Throughout the production of our vodcasts, blogs and coursework we have been using technologies to get these done. We have used new software as well as ones previously used. We use many technologies when working on our media coursework, technology is used in basically everything we do in media, from film making to blogging!

Blogger: Blogger allowed me to update my audience on what I had been doing previously and what I was doing and going to do in the future by posting blogs. It allowed me to gain feedback and also keep a notice of what I needed to do in the future. From the start I was only using blogger to post my experiences so far, then I learnt how to use link lists. I used these to make sure my podcast and analysis of films weren't missed by being pushed lower down. I also used link lists to advertise the Top 5 Current Horror Films according to The Guardian newspaper which updated weekly, this redirected you to the website once you clicked the link. As well as that I was able to activate a poll on a topic that I may of needed help on or what I found interesting.

Adobe After Effects: I have used this before, so it wasn't that hard to use. This software allows you to edit videos in many possible ways, it is more advanced editing software which allows you to allow add effects, include advanced text animations and visual effects. I used this software mainly to create the text which we included in our Trailer and also Final Film. I used effects such a Twitch and Time-lapsing which was accompanied with sound. The software is very complicated to use however I have been using it for years therefore it was easy for me to use. However for anyone new using it will struggle unless they have used similar programs like Final Cut Express or Adobe Premiere. I used this mainly to create both my idents as LiveType was not functional enough. It works similar to Final Cut Express using Frame by Frame keying to have effects.

Final Cut Pro: We used final cut pro to edit all of our footage including vodcasts, micro drama and any other videos we have made. We also used it partly when making our idents and it’s a quick and successful way of editing footage and putting music together. It is very easy to use and has lots of options, effects and useful transitions to improve any footage. It was very useful when creating vodcasts and adding writing and titles on screen. It is a good programme for people to use as it is simple and easy to use, however if wanting to use more complex tools then i would choose an alternate software such as Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas.

YouTube: YouTube turned out to be a great resource for not only uploading and gaining feedback of the audience, I used YouTube to find out about different films that had been previously released or that are soon going to be released via trailers. I also found out more information about programs by looking up tutorials on Final Cut. YouTube allowed me to give myself feedback and not get repetitive feedback by adding annotations; this is what made me use it instead of using another file sharing website such as Vimeo. We also use YouTube for many other things; this includes reviewing past coursework, and also watches each other’s work. Or get information on films. On YouTube we can take screenshots which means we can put the pictures on our blog to make reference to other slasher films. YouTube lets us embed videos and from YouTube which allows us to embed them to our blog.

iMovie: iMovie was the first real editing product that I had ever used. It was very simple to use and didn't take long to get used to as there were only transitions, sound effects and general editing software located on the program, it was very effective for us using it first time as we were just practicing our shots (very helpful and quick to use when editing our preliminary task or first versions of our rough cuts). We also used iMovie to upload our footage to even when we later used final cut, from there we could just drag and drop it into Final Cut and it would be ready for us to edit. I learnt the basics to editing using this program and although simple to use at first I could produce something of higher quality on it now than I could of done 5 months ago.

Sony Vegas: Sony Vegas is very similar to existing programmes like Final Cut Pro however is the alternate windows version. I have found that it is more complex and offers a wider range of tools to use which are easier and simpler to use. However it is personal opinion, because I have been using it for years. With Sony Vegas we put together our trailer, final film and also several podcasts. IT was very useful for me as I can use it anywhere I take my laptop with me so editing on the go is very easy. It offers the ability to cut, edit and trim whilst giving the ability to add effects, transitions and custom plugins.

Scribd: Scribd is a very useful tool, it helped a lot when trying to upload power points and word documents as Blogger itself didn't have tools to do that, what we'd need was to create an account and simply upload the file, from there we were able to copy the embed code and paste it in. Our group used this to upload and download word documents and sheets for our work.

LiveType: This is the software on Mac that we used to create the Parts of our idents. I found it quite simple to use as I have used similar software on Windows. However, I couldn't achieve all the effects I wanted on my ident so I had to use software to create the rest of my Idents.

Cameras: We use a full HD 1080p video camera for all our footage, and we used them for our first few podcasts. They are quite straight forward to use however it takes practice. The footage can be uploaded straight from the memory card into final cut pro. This makes it very quick to get footage imported and edited.

IMDB: We use the website IMDb to look up information about films we are researching and to help look at information about budget, actors, distributers and production companies. It has a lot of information that is relevant to us making important decisions about our productions.

digitalisation is becoming increasingly more popular. Making films has become a lot much easier, having the option to create a low budget films with handheld cameras as well as a high quality film.

Evaluation Question Q7 Learnt Since The Prelim

2013-05-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

Our Prelim

Our first video task when we started media was that we had to create our prelim using various methods of editing and shot variety. I have used a camera before and editing software therefor it was straight forward for we had to do. However i had never known these shots or names for them which i learnt.

The task was as to create a short film which consisted of 3 camera shots and editing techniques which were, match on action, the 180 degree rule and the shot reverse shot. The video itself was shot in school in our media classroom, which I filmed. The clip is only around 30 seconds long due to the very short dialogue and lack of events. After the film was shot we used Final Cut Pro X to edit the video so it ran continuously.

Our Swede

This was our second task we took was to create a swede for a film of our choice. We chose Taken as it was a well known film and also we could use famous quotes from it which were recognizable. The task its self was simple, however as a group not having very much experience in filming a film, acting and creating a swede. Personally i was pleased with our final result however for our first small film it was relatively okay.

Here is the final Swede we created.

Micro Drama

Our third video task was to create a short film in the "horror" genre. The cast was all of the boys in the media class including myself. I was in the film, however i was the first to die, therefor i could do the rest of the filming. I also edited our version as there was two versions of the short film. We had good feedback on the quality of the film including editing techniques which could be included and more shot variety. This included for example, we used too many long shots in dramatic scenes which didn't work too well. I personally learned from this majorly as i filmed it so i knew for next time i could change it. Also when editing i was told to use more fast pace editing and quick shots for violent scenes which we then used for our film opening.

Here is the Mirco Drama.

Research

We had no research and planning with the premlim which is a large comparison to the research and planning we did for our final cut. The comparison between the two was that our prelim task took us a few hours to complete where as our final cut took months of construction inluding research, planning, shooting and editing.

Due to the fact we chose the Slasher genre, there was a lot research to require the correct research we needed which therefore could be put into our final film. We used this to include key slasher conventions and narratives which we could therefore put into our own film. The research and planning itself took up a lot more time than you would expect, more time would go into this than the actual shooting of our final cut and our trailer put together. Because i had to make sure we had everything planned before hand, as this isn't just a thing that you can go straight in to. We tried to anchor as many things as we could to our audience so that it would match our preferred reading.

Our Trailer Storyboard - Asylum Trailer

Here are the sheets of the storyboard for the trailer of our film. We used these as a guideline to what we had to film. However, we didn't stick to what we had down on our storyboard, we changed things that we thought didn't seem right. Such as the desk shot, we thought our trailer would be much more effective if we didn't include it

Time Management

Time management is a very important factor when constructing any form of media product. We had to occasions where time management was important, for our Micro drama and our Final cut. you have to organize a number of different things. Our bigger project needing planning for gathering cast, managing multiple shoots, dealing with weather changes, starting soon enough to give us time to re shoot if we needed to.

Pitching

Before we came up with a final idea for our final film. We each had to individually pitch our idea to our class mates. This was useful as we could compare a number of different ideas with each other. It was helpful to see other peoples pitches to see their ideas because it could help improve our group idea as well we could benefit to the others. Personally my idea wasn't that good and could have been developed into a better more substantial idea.

Mise En Scene

Establishing shot

Mise en scene wasn't used in our prelim because it wasn't needed as we filmed in a classroom and there was no story to it. However, in our final film we used mise en scene to signify key elements for example on the right is High Royds Mental Asylum which we used to create verisimilitude. Here is our opening shot, here we give the audience a view of the mental asylum, this was to give an insight into how big of an escape this is as the size of the building lets you know that it is a large scale asylum. The reason we chose this building is because since a few years ago it has been a fully functional mental asylum which we thought was ideal for our opening as we feel it still has the scary feeling about it with its dark, mysterious look which created verisimilitude.

POV shot

After the scene of the Asylum we go straight to a point of view shot through the killers eyes. Here we used a Mercedes car. We used this to signify how old the character is as he is a Dr in his early thirty's, using a Mercedes would signify his age and that he is an adult character. So we took a shot of him getting out of the car and locking it to give the audience an idea that he has just driven it home, this we thought was an effective feature to signify his age and his social class.

ID for mise en scene

A key piece of mise en scene in our film was the doctor himself with his ID badge. Costume was a very important factor in our final cut also, the costumes were used to signify a number of different things in our film. For example through the costume we signified that the male character was the doctor as he wore smart clothes and we gave him the doctors badge for mise en scene.

Our location was ambitious but we felt it would anchor the correct setting for our film as it was an actual mental asylum. But we chose this because it signified our genre giving that it was a rather daunting place.

Casting

The casting is also a key factor to consider, when looking back at our prelim there was not much acting involved at all. In the Swede and Micro Drama the cating was not as important and we didnt take many things into consideration. Though in comparison to our final film the casting was much more important as our actors had to play important roles. All our characters fitted their stereotypes we chose to use no counter types because we felt that our film was effective enough with out them. We did include key slasher conventions we had found from our research and planning. we included a Scream Queen who fitted the role of the stereotype well due to her costume and the way she was portrayed in our film. This wasn't the case for the prelim because there wasn't as much involved

Rough Cuts

Rough Cut 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPw-VArvi1E
Rough Cut 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrwK8UMsUQI
Rough Cut 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_MFf__7Lw
Rough Cut 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifdXbEgtG_0
Rough Cut 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI04_fODvmU
Rough Cut 6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1WNIPAgAU

Rough cuts were important in our production, the main reason was because we were able to get a lot of feed back which we would take into consideration. This is very important because we can find out whether our target audience had a distaste or didn't like anything in our film. we also used Facebook frequently as most of our primary audience used this resource we could put up our rough cuts to this and gather valuable feedback. In our prelim we only had one shoot we didn't create any rough cuts to gather any audience feedback from.

Soundtrack

We had to create an original soundtrack for the film which was a difficult process.

For our prelim there was no soundtrack involved at all. this was simply because of time. Therefore if we had of done any planning for our prelim we probably would have scheduled time to create a soundtrack to make our prelim better.

It was difficult in the sense that we were trying to include a soundtrack that would build up the suspense throughout our film, we had to try a number of different sounds and effects to create a sense of suspense which is achieved in a lot of slasher films i have looked at previously such as Halloween and Scream.

Idents

A company ident is a way of showing the audience who is behind the film as it is a form of advertising. You tend to see a couple of idents at the start of the film before every movie starts you will never see a film without company idents unless it is extremely indie and low budget or even homemade.

Most idents come with their own jingle, theme song or sound. Dream works is a good ident which includes music and titles with an animation as well.

It depends on how the company chooses how they design their ident for how much it will cost as they don't have to be extremely costly as they are easy to make on an unambitious scale. But most popular idents are very appealing and don't look like they have been made within an hour or so like ours. MY favorite Ident is the dream works one which i have shown above due to its subtle nice style to it.

My Ident

We created our own company idents as part of the criteria for our film opening so we each created one individually using Live Type. However i used another programme to create mine which was Adobe After Effects which allowed me to create a more dynamic effect and text animation.

Here is my idents "Twitch Productions" and "Blue Flame", i tried to make it look as scary as i can so i added a twitch effect to it at the end as if there is a "supernatural" presence within the text. This gave it a scary feel accompanied by the sound effect, worked well i thought. Also i wanted a more simpler and calmer ident so i made "Blue Flame" which was a more calmer and subtle ident.

Shot Variety

With our final cut our shot variety was very important to get the verisimilitude and film feel. Below explains the shots we used in the final cut, prelim and also Micro Drama.

Shot reverse shot

This editing technique is used mainly for conversations, this is also a continuity editing method.

180 degree rule

The rule is that the camera stays in line with the imaginary line, which can be seen in the image of the right. The rule enforces continuity of the film.

Match on action

This editing method is used for continuity and verisimilitude. One shot cuts to a close up of the action of the subject in the first shot as shown in the picture on the right.

In comparison to our prelim the shot variety is very little. This is a thing i had learnt since the prelim. Shot variety offers many different ways to show a character and can also focus on a number of different aspects to signify certain things to the audience.

Individual Roles

In our prelim task there was not much of feel of working in a group because we all knew the task that we had to complete. However i would say it helped me as it gave me an idea of working in a group with people i didn't know as i was new to this school and didn't know anyone. Also i had never fully worked with people when film and editing so it gave me the ability to have guidance and have others give me feedback which in all was more beneficial to the video.

Everyone in the group had individual roles, including filming, editing, cast and light/sound. I mainly throughout the Prelim, Micro Drama and Film Opening filmed and directed them as this is what i am best at. I can not act therefor it would have been stupid to me in the film instead. Also i mainly edited the film and prelim as i had most experience. I think i could offer something beneficial if i wasn't just filming and editing however personally that's my greater skill over acting.

Working in a group was very stressful. I would say that at times some of us contributed more than others however on a whole we all contributed to our film equally, as we split up a number of tasks between us. We helped each other with the blogs and questions, as well teaching each other various techniques and skills with editing and using a camera.

Silence of the Lambs

2013-05-03T03:42:00.000-07:00

Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme)

Budget

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$13,766,814 (USA) (15 February 1991) (1,497 Screens)
£292,592 (UK) (6 June 1991) (1 Screen)
ARS 688,839 (Argentina) (13 June 1991) (4 Screens)
AUD 3,735,383 (Australia) (16 May 1991) (85 Screens)
DEM 153,261 (Germany) (8 April 1992) (150 Screens)
DEM 2,026,540 (Germany) (18 April 1991) (205 Screens)

Gross

$130,742,922 (USA) (30 June 2012)
$130,643,286 (USA) (29 September 1991)
$130,549,109 (USA) (22 September 1991)
$130,433,755 (USA) (15 September 1991)

$130,280,726 (USA) (8 September 1991)

Silence of the Lambs Poster Analysis

The title of this film, the women’s eyes and parts of the butterfly are shown in red. The colour red has connotations to death, evil, blood and violence. By using these colour’s on the film poster they have gave the audience an insight into what type of film it is going to be.

The look on the girls face appears innocent and relates to the word ‘lamb’ in the title. Lambs have connotations with God and purity. The butterfly over the girl’s mouth also refers to the title ‘the silence of the lambs’ as it is preventing the women from speaking.
The butterfly however is not an ordinary butterfly it has a skull on the back of its head. Skulls have connotations to death. Meaning that whatever is ‘silencing the lambs’ is going to be violent.

The poster uses black and white to show Good vs. Evil. The women are shown in white meaning that she is possibly the hero/victim in the film. The black background seems mysterious as it appears to engulf part of the women’s face. This could refer to the women being ‘brought to the dark side’ or the darkness coming to get her.

Overall I think this film poster does a good job of showing the typical conventions of a thriller film.

Last House on The Left

2013-05-03T03:36:00.000-07:00

Film Opening - Last House on the Left

Last House on the left (Wes Craven, 1972)

Budget was 90 k because of being an indie production.

it had no big actors or stars because its such a low budget however it made a colossal profit margin.

at the the beginning of the film Wes Craven uses exposition at the beginning to create a sense or realism, this scares the audience into thinking it was actually a real event with this text using sans serif font in the filmThis writing is chosen to look realistic to a scare audience. It uses conventional media language, opening with a panning shot of an extreme long shot which then cuts to a different part of the environment. It has been a convention of all the slasher openings i have watched so far that it starts with an environment shot and not just the characters. A lot of the exposition is done by showing graffiti. Initially by the protagonists name being on the screen. The quality of the footage on the film isn't very good. Also at the beginning of this film there are some discontinuity editing.

There are very minimal titles, only 6 including the film title being shown. No stars are mentioned because the budget wouldn't have been big enough to hire any. In a lot of the slasher films the reason for a lot of the deaths is due to immoral behaviour and the killer wanting to see them punished for something they may have done. Unlike a lot of slasher films it uses a lot of long takes and limited shot variety, this is probably also down to the lack of money.

In the opening there is also an extreme close up of a neclace 'magical object'. This is a very significant part of the mise-en-scene.

GCJ The Asylum Final Cut Screening

2013-04-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Asylum Screening

Here is the Asylum Screen To an Audience to get feedback. This helped us to gain and improve aspects of the final cut.We managed to get a screening in our classroom as our peers were very helpful to give up their lesson time for us.

We asked the following questions:

•Overall thoughts

•What they liked about the film

•What they would change and why

•If they were to make this film how would they do it differently

Here is the Audience feedback for the final Cut screenign, we gained possitive and negative feedback rusulting in contructiveness for future edits and wor.

The Original Story Board For The Trailer

2013-04-29T14:18:00.001-07:00

Trailer Storyboard

Sheet 1

Sheet 2

These are the original copies of our storyboard for the trailer of our film. We used these as a guideline to what we had to film. However, we didn't stick to what we had down on our storyboard, we changed things that we thought didn't seem right. Such as the desk shot, we thought our trailer would be much more effective if we didn't include it

Slasher Soundtrack

2013-04-29T14:15:00.006-07:00

Soundtrack: Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

Halloween Cover

Budget

$325,000 (estimated)

Gross

$47,000,000 (USA)
$60,000,000 (Worldwide) ( 1978)
AUD 900,000 (Australia) ( 1979)
$782,277 (Germany)
HKD 450,139 (Hong Kong) ( 1979)
SEK 2,298,579 (Sweden)

Admissions

750,000 (Germany)
118,606 (Sweden)

Rentals

$18,500,000 (USA)

As Halloween opens there is a high pitched faint piano keys being played as well as a pattering on a drum or symbol to provide an nervous feel for the audience. then at 17 seconds when the pumpkin is shown with the opening titles, much deeper notes are introduced layered on top to create a deeper sound and to create tension. At this point, these deep piano notes turn to longer drawn out notes. At 49 seconds into the opening synths are then added which are much higher notes but are also long notes as well to go with the other instruments and to not sound out of sync. Then at 1.05 the deep piano notes and the high pitched synths are taken out and what was originally there in the beginning is only two instrumental sounds - the piano and the tapping. At 1.14 the long drawn out piano notes return to create tension - this gets gradually louder until 2.00 when the first two instruments are back again as the dennotation (Haddonfield, Illinois) and (Halloween Night, 1963) is shown. The volume of the piano is lowered and the digetic sound of children's voices are introduced.

At 2.20 the iconic house POV shot is shown and all instruments draw to silence. The only sound is the digetic sound of nature and the sound of the couples voices inside. Inside the house the digetic sound continues until 3.14 when a high pitched long drawn out keyboard note is added to build suspense as the POV stalks the two in the house.

The Asylum Re-Shoot

2013-04-29T14:03:00.003-07:00

Our Re-Shoot

After shooting our first rough cut, we decided we needed more footage to make our final piece great. so in school we arranged to meet at my house for the shoot, with the following characters:

Psycho shower scene

Heather: scream queen
Jake: The Dr
Curtis: The killer
George:Camera Man/Director

We arranged the first murder scene in the bathroom, using a kitchen knife and ketchup as blood. We used strategies that many films use, probably the most famous, the Psycho shower scene, where they used fast pace editing.

Like the attic stairs we used

We did our shoot after school, planning our shoot within my house. Preparing the scenes we had to do during the week. We had 2 Killing scenes, one of the final girl and one of the Dr.

to make it look much more realistic when special effects aren't available.

The second murder Took place in my bedroom which is up some stairs in the attic. we thought it would be very effective to us this as the stairs are very effective. We did one continuous take with a false scare and a real scare leading up to the death Jake at the end which then goes straight onto the Titles after
.

ALL Rough Cut Feedback

2013-04-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

This is Ben watching our 6th rough cut

Ben gave us some really positive feed back on the start of our opening and credited our build up of the tension through our use of digetic and non digetic music and sound effects. the editing also is well done which is what we were trying to achieve a continuity for our opening. However for improvements our opening is very long and Ben suggested that we could shorten some of the takes, this is what we had considered previously in our other rough cuts but it is clear that some takes still need shortening and we can see that too. Also a bit more sound was suggested which we had also taken into consideration previously but what i think Ben means is sound linking scenes together for example the scene form the mental asylum to the scene of the doctor getting out of his car. Additionally Ben said that we could include a basic soundtrack which could work well with the opening to the film and the opening to the opening of the credits.

Therefore there are a few points we can take form this constructive piece of feedback which will be put into context of our final film. As well as our feedback as a group we feel that there are still tweaks that can be changed in our opening but feedback has helped massively on all of our rough cuts. This way we know what to improve and that it will be to our target audiences taste as our feedback was from people between the age of 15-26 as we don't want to change anything that hasn't been suggested unless we are confident that it will be effective.

Target Audience Feedback: Facebook

Facebook comments for our 5th Rough Cut

Trailer Feedback

Facebook comments for our teaser trailer

ALL Titles from the slasher genre

2013-04-29T04:36:00.005-07:00

In the titles of Halloween it introduces two of the main characters, with their name in big letter the 'in'. this is because the names of these two are either recognised or are main parts in the film. As me and Curtis Tiplady are both recognised names in our media society from doing the swede and the micro-drama, we are going to do the same as this

ALL Asylum Mise-En-Scene & Costume

2013-04-29T04:33:00.002-07:00

Mise-En-Scene

Here is our opening shot, here we give the audience a view of the mental asylum, this was to give an insight into how big of an escape this is as the size of the building lets you know that it is a large scale asylum. The reason we chose this building is because since a few years ago it has been a fully functional mental asylum. this we thought was absolutely ideal for our opening as we feel it still has the eery buzz about it with its dark,
mysterious look about it.

Here we used a Mercedes car which is my mums. We used this to signify how old the character is as he is a Dr in his early thirty's, using a Mercedes would signify his age and that he is an adult character. so we took a shot of him getting out of the car and locking it to give the audience an idea that he has just driven it home, this we thought was an effective feature to signify his age and his social class.

This shot is one of my favorite shots of the killer, i think it is very effective, building suspense as we break some of the narrative enigma to the audience showing the full body of the killer. we did this by arranging the position of Curtis (the killer) by shouting out of the window so he was in the right spot. We managed to get the perfect position and used an outdoor light to make the shot more effective to show the killer more clearly.

Costume

Here we have a shot from in the cupboard it shows the costume of the Dr. As he is a Dr it is a smart uniform he is wearing, i chose chino trousers and a smart shirt buttoned up as this is what was in our mind as a stereotypical Dr from first hand experience and from watching television. To add to the costume we used my Driving license as an identity for the Dr, as we thought it would add to the stereotypical look.

Here we have the bottom half of what our scream queen was wearing, we asked her to wear shorts as this shows a lot of skin especially with the top she was wearing as well. This was used as it is very stereotypical of the scream queen archetype to be blonde and wear revealing clothes.

This is the killer running from the Asylum. The killers costume, is inspired by the patients escape. He is wearing the Dr's lab coat and was the reason he was able to escape by disguise. We went to the schools biology department and they let us borrow the lab coat, this worked very effectively

Our fake blood

We used fake blood for verisimilitude for our killing scene it also made our film a lot more realistic as the victim was killed with a knife.

Here is the useful resource we used http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Fake-Blood

ALL Asylum Narratives

2013-04-29T04:20:00.003-07:00

In our opening it goes against Todorovs theory of starting with equilibrium. Our film starts with complete dis-equilibrium as there is massive panic as a psycho patient has escaped the asylum. it goes from dis-equilibrium to equilibrium when we go straight to the house, this is the complete opposite to Todorovs theory. We decided to do this as we thought it would be a very effective opening to the film to get the audience on the edge of their seats.

In our opening we used some binary opposition, One of the main binary oppositions was the Dr and the patient. The patient is kind of pushed out of society, earns no money and a low social class. then we have our Dr who is a high social class as his job is a very respectable job. He drives a mercedes and looks to have money with his clothes. Then we have the patient with no job, mentally ill etc.

We also provided exposition as we were very influenced by Halloween. We also thought that we needed to provide the audience with information about where they were as it was just an outside shot of the building. it also gives the time as we later on went to the house in the opening, this gave the audience a sense of time in the opening

The Asylum Screenplay

2013-04-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Screenplay for The Asylum

The Asylum

Staring Curtis Tiplady, Jake Wilson, Heather Macphereson

Rough Cut 1

Location 1: The Asylum

The Doctor: (Running down the stairs) (Shouting, exhausted) "Catch him he's escaped" -Jakes facial expression suggests that he's worried.

The shot fades out

Location 2: The House

The Doctor: (Startled)

The Scream Queen: (Coming into the bathroom) (Relaxed) "Hey babe its only me"

The Doctor: "Sorry bad day at work"

The Scream Queen: "Come here then"

Final Cut:

Location 1: The Asylum

The Doctor: (Running down the stairs) (Shouting, exhausted) "Catch him he's escaped"

-Jakes facial expression suggests that he's worri
The shot fades out

Location 2: The House

The Doctor: (Startled)

The Scream Queen: (Coming into the bathroom) (Relaxed) "Hey babe its only me"

My Poster For Asylum

2013-04-25T03:58:00.002-07:00

This is our film poster for The Asylum we chose to show very little detail about the film itself. We included an image of the knife and the killer to signify the slasher genre. Also to signify the slasher genre we used a san serif font. As we have looked at previous slasher posters such as Psycho. We also went with the red and black which signifies horror.

Asylum Rough Cuts

2013-04-25T02:45:00.000-07:00

Below is Our First Rough Cut we made

Several points from feedback were that the shots were too long and the false scare wasn't scary at all.

Here is our Second Rough Cut

This was an improvement however there was a lot of mistakes and still very long. It had to be trimmed down immensely. Also the frame aspect ratio rendered out badly and had to be resolved.

This is our Third Rough Cut

The feedback given to us on this one was that the Black letter boxing had to go as it looked ridiculous and didn't work at all. Also the films

Here is our Fourth Rough Cut

We realized after the feedback on the fourth rough cut that we had to change to effects added to the film. It was too contrasting and sharp, losing the video quality when we needed it the most.

This is our Fifth Rough Cut

We had trimmed the clips down a lot more this time and had created better verisimilitude by changing the match on action shots more continuous.

Facebook comments for our 5th Rough Cut

This is Ben watching our 6th rough cut

This is Ben watching our 6th rough cut

Ben gave us some really positive feed back on the start of our opening and credited our build up of the tension through our use of digetic and non digetic music and sound effects. the editing also is well done which is what we were trying to achieve a continuity for our opening. However for improvements our opening is very long and Ben suggested that we could shorten some of the takes, this is what we had considered previously in our other rough cuts but it is clear that some takes still need shortening and we can see that too. Also a bit more sound was suggested which we had also taken into consideration previously but what i think Ben means is sound linking scenes together for example the scene form the mental asylum to the scene of the doctor getting out of his car. Additionally Ben said that we could include a basic soundtrack which could work well with the opening to the film and the opening to the opening of the credits.

Therefore there are a few points we can take form this constructive piece of feedback which will be put into context of our final film. As well as our feedback as a group we feel that there are still tweaks that can be changed in our opening but feedback has helped massively on all of our rough cuts. This way we know what to improve and that it will be to our target audiences taste as our feedback was from people between the age of 15-26 as we don't want to change anything that hasn't been suggested unless we are confident that it will be effective.

Here is our Last Rough Cut

There was only little adjustments to be made including title sequence and more sound effects and music to be added to build the tension for the false scare and the death of Heather.

This is the Final Film Opening

Here is the final Film Opening, after a long editing process we have come to the final video. We have had feedback on this and everyone's opinions have said that this is a vast improvement since the first rough cut. They really like it and it gave them the "scary" feeling like most horror/slasher films do. I am pleased with our final opening, however it could have been shorter. We could have managed time better which would have resulted in a better video, however in all i think we gave it our best shot.

Working Title Productions

2013-04-21T15:18:00.000-07:00

Production company
British based film production company - co-founded by Tim Beavan & Sarah Radcliffe in 1983
Produces feature films and several television productions
1992 Polygram became the cooperate backer of the company.
Locations include: Ireland, United States , Los Angeles
Parent: Polgram (1991-1999) & Universal Studios (2000-present)
WT² production: 1999 Bevan & Fellner launched a subsidery company called WT² - independent film company- known for films such as: Billy Elliott, Shaun Of the Dead- Ran by Natascha Wharton.
Working title have grossed $3bn sicne 1992.
Eric Fellner & Tim Bevan have a great partnership- brought together by Polygram in 1992 when Tim Bevan & Sarah Radcliffee were looking for a cooperate backer- Thats where Fellner comes in.
The films were suffering because there was no real structure and, speaking for myself, my company was always virtually bankrupt." Bevan on life before Fellner's backing.
Being bought by Polygram - itself taken over by Universal in 1999 - has been liberating" says Bevan.
Pre- and post-production are "the most powerful times for us", says Bevan. "Quality is everything"

*Take 2004: "In the year you do Bridget Jones 2 you kind of know that film is going to do all right, so you can take a bigger risk at the other end, which was Shaun of the Dead. Which turned out all right, thank God
*What with the mixed fortunes of Wimbledon, 2004 was not a spectacular year for them, though they did manage to pull in $600m.
*"You have to have films that are going to do $200-$400m in box office revenue, and finding them from here is difficult."
*They produce various genre films which cater for a large target audience from U's to 18's.

Examples of films:

Atonement (2007) - Keira Knightly, James Mcavoy, to make: £15 mill, worldwide: £129,266061

Wildchild (2008) - Emma Robets, Juno Temple, to make: £20 million box office takings: £20,273, 551

HotFuzz (2007) - Edgar Wright, to make: £16 million, worldwide: £80,500,000

Asylum - Shot List

2013-04-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

These are our shot list sheets to provide information for me the director about which shot type is used for which part of the opening. We have drawn pictures and labelled the specific shot and why the shot is used:

Sheet 1 Sheet 2

Audience & Institution (The Film Industry)

2013-04-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

An institution (in the film industry)

Definition: any company or organisation that produces, distributes or exhibits films. The BBC makes films with their BBC Films arm; Channel4's Film Four produces films, Working Title also produce films, as does Vertigo Films, etc. Some institutions need to join with other institutions which distribute films. Vertigo Films is able to distribute its own films, Channel Four distributed Slumdog Millionaire through Pathe. Working Title's distribution partner is Universal, a huge US company which can make, distribute and show films. The type of owner ship within an institution matters as, for instance, Channel 4 and the BBC are able to show their own films at an earlier stage than other films made by other institutions. They are also better placed to cross-promote their in-house films within their media organisations. Use you work on Film Four as the basis for most of what you write, Moon is a good cross comparison as Duncan Jones had to create his own institution just to get the film made.

Distribution and Marketing

Definition: the business of getting films to their audiences by booking them for runs into cinemas and taking them there in vans or through digital downloads; distributors also create the marketing campaign for films producing posters, trailers, websites, organise free previews, press packs, television interviews with the "talent", sign contracts for promotions, competitions, etc. Distributors use their know-how and size to ensure that DVDs of the film end up in stores and on supermarket shelves. Distributors also obtain the BBFC certificate, and try to get films released as the most favourable times of the year for their genre, etc.

Examples:

Universal distributed Working Title's The Boat That Rocked; Pathe distributedFilm4 and Celadors' Slumdog Millionaire after the original US distributor, Warner Independent went out of business. TRONwas heavily marketed across a variety of mediums, Moon struggled to get press attention and Duncan Jones had to really push the film in obscure places like Popular Mechanics etc. The Kings Speech was distributed by Momentum (a susiduary of Aliance films) who are a major independent film distributor.

Exhibition
Definition: showing films in cinemas or on DVD. Media attention through opening nights and premieres How the audience can see the film: in cinemas, at home, on DVD, through downloads, through television, including premieres, the box office take in the opening weeks; audience reviews which includes those of the film critics, ordinary people, cinemas runs; awards in festivals, The Oscars, BAFTAS, etc.

Examples:

Slumdog Millionaire almost never got distribution. Its early US distributor, Warner Independent was a victim of the economic downturn and went out of business. The film's makers then struggled to find a distributor! Then Fox Searchlight stepped up and "the rest is history". The 8 out of 10 Oscar nomination wins ensured that the film has been the greatest British success in awards and in box office for nearly 60years.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/boyle-reveals-slumdog-millionaire-was-nearly-never-made-1331821.html

Motherhood took just £86!

Moon. Initially Sony Pictures Worldwide were due to distribute the film but they specialise in straight to DVD features. Following positive reaction following its Sundance film festival the rights were acquired by Sony Classic Pictures who gave the film a limited release in the US in Cities like New York and LA.

Exchange

Definition: The unintended use of an institution’s media text (i.e. a film) by OTHER PEOPLE who use the film or parts of it to form new texts. What happens to a film, etc. after the public get their hands on it using digital technology.

Examples:
People unconnected to the institution/ film using WEB 2.0 applications such as YOUTUBE, Blogger, Amazon film message boards, TWITTER, Face-Book, discuss the film or edit parts of together to form a new text which the may then put a new soundtrack to and publish on YOUTUBE, etc. When you add a trailer from a site like YouTube on your blog you have been engaging with exchange. Look back to MArk Kermodes video regarding piracy and the new release strategies for films like Ken Loach's "Route Irish" (Loach has reportedly steeled himself for a frosty response from critics and anticipates an underwhelming box office, noting the difficulty he faced securing a distribution deal. Though pragmatic in his view that “people don’t make films to communicate; they make it as a commodity”,an unorthodox release strategy utilising Sky Movies Premier - which will place the film (and by extension, its subject matter) in a wider public sphere than it might otherwise have reached – suggests he hasn’t given up on pedagogy entirely.) or the Jack Ass 3 release on DVD and Sky Box Office.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration

Definition: Absorption into a single firm of several firms involved in all aspects of a product's manufacture from raw materials to distribution.

Example:
Vivendi Universal have integrated film, music, web and distribution technology into the company, including owning big stakes in cables and wires that deliver these services. Therefore they are vertically integrated because they own all the different companies involved in film, from production to distribution to exhibition. They are also horizontally integrated because they have all the expertise for producing media content under one roof – films, TV, magazines, books, music, games thus being able to produce all the related media content for one film under the same roof (see synergy). This is important for the control the institution has over their product/film.

Synergy/Synergies

Definition: The interaction of two or more agents (institutions/companies) to ensure a larger effect than if they acted independently. This is beneficial for each company through efficiencies in expertise and costs.

Examples:
Working Title know how to make films and they have formed a business partnership with Universal, a massive US company, who have the experience and size in the marketplace (cinemas, stores, online, etc.) to distribute them. (They create the marketing campaign to target audiences through posters, trailers, create the film’s website, free previews, television and press interviews featuring “the talent”, drum up press reviews, word of mouth, and determine when a film is released for the best possible audience and the type of release: limited, wide, etc.) Channel Four’s Film 4 and Celador Films(Celador also produce Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and films, too) benefited by pooling their know-how, experience and expertise to jointly produce Slumdog Millionaire. These companies formed a business relationship with France’s Pathe to distribute this film. In the UK Pathe helped create the poster, trailer, website, etc. In the USA the film found another distributor after being nominated for the Oscars.

Viral Marketing

Definition: A marketing technique aiming at reproducing "word of mouth" usually on the internet and through existing social networks. YouTube Video pastiches, trailers, interviews with cast members, the director, writer, etc. You can find interviews of “the talent” trying to gain publicity for your case study films on YouTube. Find some clips from the films we have studied to help you in the exam.

Media Convergence
Definition 1: Convergence of media occurs when multiple products come together to form one product with the advantages of all of them.

Examples:

More and more films are being marketed on the Internet and on mobile phones. You no longer need even to buy the DVDs or CDs as you can download films and music directly to your laptop, Mac or PC. Blue Ray DVDs can carry more features than ordinary DVDs and can be played on HD televisions and in home cinemas for enhanced/cinematic picture quality. You can save films on SKY digital, Free-box digital players, etc. You mobile phone has multiple features and applications. With media and technological convergence this is growing year on year. Play-Stations, X-Boxes and the Wii can can connect with the Internet and you can play video games with multiple players.

Technological Convergence

Definition 2: The growing interractive use of digital technology in the film industry and media which enables people to share, consume and produce media that was difficult or impossible just a few years earlier.

Examples:

For instance, the use of new software to add special effects in editing; the use of blue-screen; using new types of digital cameras like the one Danny Boyle used in “Slumdog Millionaire” (The Silicon Imaging Camera to shoot high quality film in tight spaces); you can use the Internet to download a film rather than go see it in the cinema; you can watch it on YouTube; you can use special editing programs like Final Cut Pro to edit bits of a film, give it new soundtrack and upload it on YouTube; you can produce illegal, pirate copies on DVDs from downloads and by converting the film’s format; you can buy Blue Ray DVDs with greater compression which allows superior viewing and more features on the DVD; distributors can use digital software to create high concept posters; cinemas can download films to their projection screens and do not have to depend on a van dropping off the film! The is also the Digital Screen Network. There are tons of ways in which technological convergence affects the production, distribution, exhibition and exchange by prosumers. ( A prosumer is someone who not only consumes (watches films) but also writes about them the Net, blogs and make films out of them, often uploading them on sites like YouTube, etc.

A Mainstream Film

Definition: A high budget film that would appeal to most segments of an audience: the young, boys, girls, teenagers, young people, the middle aged, older people, the various classes in society. Distributors often spend as much or more than the film cost to make when distributing mainstream films that are given wide or universal releases.

Example:

The Boat That Rocked was a mainstream idea and was given the mainstream treatment on wide release. The film flopped at the UK box office on release ( and has not done too well since mid November 2009 on release in the USA. This was mostly because of its poor reviews, particularly from “Time-Out”. However, when young and older audiences see the DVD they generally like the film because of its uplifting storyline and the well-chosen soundtrack.

Art House Films

Definition: A low budget independent film that would mostly appeal to an educated, higher class audience who follow unusual genres or like cult directors that few people have heard of. Therefore it is usually aimed at a niche market. Foreign films often come under this category.

Examples:
The low budget film, Once (2007) which found a specialised, boutique distributor in Fox Searchlight fits this label. (FOX the mainstream company usually distributes big budget film and blockbusters); So does “Juno” from 2008 which began as a low budget film about teenage pregnancy that the big studios thought too risky to touch – but it found popularity through its touching story line, engaging music and its Oscar nomination for best script. Like “Slumdog Millionaire” the film crossed over between art-house cinemas and audiences to mainstream ones because of the recognition it received from Canadian film festivals and award ceremonies like Britain’s BAFTAS and the Hollywood’s Oscars.

Ratings bodies BBFC - The British Board of Film Classification

How your institutions films are rated will affect audiences in so far as WHO can see them. Sex scenes, offensive language, excessive violence, the use of profanity, etc. can affect the rating and certificate the film receives and therefore affect who is able to see the film.

The information on this page was taken from Wikipedia, The Guardian and from Google.