Audience feedback after the final cut

This feedback was taken after the final cut had been made, this allowed us to get some final impression before the film would be finally finished, although we would not be able to change it now, what the audience thought it it mattered to us and our evaluation.

Person A:

Positive Points:
- Music fits the style of film
- Effects work well - Flashes
- Quick editing
- Word scenes helped the style

Negative Points:
- Camera was very grainy
- When some characters spoke a loud pitched noise was annoying

Improvements:
- Make the plot more clear

Other:
- N/A
Person B:

Positive Points:
-Having quick edits made the genre effective
- Characters were scarey, enticing the genre and depth of story
- Voice over was interesting to listen too as it used the doctor well

Negative Points:
-Voice over could have been louder

Improvements:
- Watching the trailer and listening to the voice over could be hard, watching multiple times allows both sides to be seen and heard better

Other:
N/A

Person C:

Positive Points:
-Build up of events was good, the film story was progressing well
- Music was really good worked well with the genre
- Lots of points which would be interesting to watch

Negative Points:
N/A

Improvements:
N/A

Other:
Well done!

Person D:

Positive Points:
- Music was really good
- Made me want to watch the full film

Negative Points:
- Some jump cuts were annoying to watch as they didn't seem to progress or help the scene

Improvements:
- Make the voice over louder, was kinda quite

Other:
- Well done

Person E:

Positive Points:
- Nice use of transitions and editing
- Elevator shot was funny, Matt smiling showed how derranged his character was

Negative Points:
- Voice over was quiet
- the full plot line could not really be seen

Improvements:
- Lighting, it was generally day, could have a night time scene, most horror films do


Other:
- Good job

Person F:

Positive Points:
- The music very tense, which made the whole trailer very atmospheric, scarey!
- They killed Joel.
- Nice use of transitions and edits


Negative Points:
- Voice over quality

Improvements:
- Camera Quality, it was pretty poor, pushed down the film in general

Other:
- Only joking about Joel, haha.

Person G:

Positive Points:
- Good use of music really set the mood
- There were good actors
- Editing was good, fit the genre, lots of jumps and flashes

Negative Points:
- Story was somewhat hard to understand at first

Improvements:
- more ideas, themes and twists about the storyline

Other:
N/A

Person H:

Positive Points:
- Tense
- Perry was espesically good
- Matt was also good, he was pretty scarey
- Gave me just the right amount of film to make me want to want it
- Watching the trailer, reading the words and listening to the voice over made me really think about the film, all the aspects give different feelings towards the film which could be expored

Negative Points:
N/A

Improvements:
- Voice over could have been louder

Other:
Love it guys!

Evaluation of the Magazine Front Cover

Evaluation of the Magazine Front Cover

Through the magazine cover the representation of good and evil is portrayed through the lighting in the pictures of each character, which was edited through the programme CS4 Photoshop. We decided to change the lighting of the pictures to help show the semantic meaning through to our audience whom we hoped would pick up on what we had done when looking at the cover. By showing Bobby Watts as the brightest lit it shows across how he is the hero within the film as heroes are normally seen in a good light. Chace is in normal lighting to show how he is an average, ordinary guy however by placing Gabriel’s character in dark lighting behind Chace it portrays the power Gabriel has over Chace and also portrays the fact that within the film Chace’s character is haunted and meddled with Gabriel’s character. On the right of Chace we have placed The Evil Doctor whom is in a darkened light to show how he isn’t the stereotypical helpful doctor but instead is one of the other evil characters that Chace comes across within the film. One of the negative points about the pictures is how you can clearly see the straight edges in places of the pictures where they have been cut around which makes it look slightly un-finished and scruffy so by blending the edges and smoothing them out I think they could look more professional. If we were to re-do the photos I think we would consider re-shooting them to improve the lighting of each one to make it clearer to the audience the difference in lighting for each photo, especially the doctor as he doesn’t perhaps look as evil as he could do however overall I think we did a good job of capturing each character’s personalities through the photos and positioning on the page.

The representation through the use of an extreme close-up shot of a pocket watch for the background of the magazine cover is to show how time is ticking until Gabriel does another thing bad for example kill someone else. We found it very symbolic by using an extreme close-up shot of the watch after testing various distance close-ups of the pocket watch as it shows every small detail of the watch which relates to how every second counts that is ticking down till the next killing that Gabriel’s character performs and by using feedback from our target audience that also helped to influence our choice on the better front cover background.

The reasoning behind the striped lines above and underneath the title ‘Directors Cut’ is to symbolise a Directors cut board which we found would clearly imply how the magazine’s genre is based on films and how it also contrasts well with the magazine name that we have used. Unfortunately because of the picture in the background the title of our film is not clearly seen in the black font however we did not find this too much of a problem so left it as it is as we were happy enough. If we were to change it though, we would either change the background picture so that the lighting of it doesn’t affect the title of the magazine or we would change the font colour to an appropriate one that can be seen.

We positioned the title of our film in front of the main character as we found many other film magazines e.g. (Empire) tended to place the film they were advertising’s name in the centre of the page so the reader can easily identify the film’s name. We ensured that we used our tagline underneath the placing of our film’s name so that it can indicate the genre of the film clearly and by using a distorted red font for both the film name and the tagline we wanted it to symbolise the blood of the people killed in our film and the distorted font was to show how the character is messed up due to the multi-personality of the main character. One problem the title of the film on the front cover is that it is too small and would have to be made bigger if improved as it could do with being more empowering on the page to emphasise the name more.

We abbreviated the title of one of the film names we made up to portray that the reader would be knowledgeable to recognise what film is being abbreviated without looking at the picture next to it. It also would show how the reader would loyally know the film well and that’s why the reader would want a poster of that film and ‘Pint of Milk’ as they are representing well known films, which is what present film magazines (Empire and Total Film) do to make their audiences want to read and buy their magazines.

We chose a contrasting colour scheme as it is a common feature for magazines to do to interest readers. Although the burgundy is slightly dull it works with the black, white and red, especially complimenting the reds vibrant personality bringing a more subtle and calmer tone to the magazine itself. The only problem with some of the colour choices is that in areas some letters are out of view as the image behind disfigures the letter. If we re-made the magazine we would consider changing the colour scheme to prevent this from happening.

Overall the magazine cover was a success despite the few things we could do with changing to improve it. We found it fairly good going to construct and included as much information about our film through the layout of the magazine.

Jo :)

Shot like a modern day Noir

Here is an evaluation of the Mise en scene


Chace: Is dressed in white to show he is light and pure but the black and red on his jacket show he has a dark core and blood on his hands. He has clam hair unlike his mad evil counter part. His blue jeans are to once again to show light but have many pockets (to hide things away) and tears to show he is ripping apart at the seems.
The shoes stay the same for both half’s of the character to show that they linked and that Chace can’t just take Gabriel off.

Gabriel: Is dressed all in black which denotes the evil darkness of the character, the giant eye of the t-shirt is to show he is always watching from within and that this maybe a portal to Chace. The jeans are dark unlike Chace’s and have no rips or tears to show his power and maybe that he is indestructible.

Doc: The stereotypical white coat that is linked with doctors so used to stick to stereotypes much like the glasses used to make the doctor look more knowledgeable.
The beard is used as a rule doctors don’t tend to have them and this links to the evil unconventional means of the Doc.

The school is already dressed to the perfect mise en scene

Matt

Don't you know who I think I am?

Here is an evaluation of the representation in the trailer


Chace: Is our protagonist in the trailer as he has been cursed with the second half of his persona in (Gabriel) but if we had continued to make the entire film the character could have turned to the dark side being taken over by his evil half. White middle class A-level student he can relate to the audience as most of them will be in to the lesser extreme the same situation as him (something to hide).

Gabriel: The antagonist evil half of Chace, the representation of Gabriel is that of the stereotypical slasher murderer as he is dressed in black (black seen as a negative colour the darkness to Chace’s white light). The spiked up crazy hair is used to show the character’s disturbed mental state. It is also a dark irony that the evil murderer is called Gabriel after an angel.

Doc: Seen as the stereotypical healer in his white coat and is meant to be trusted and believed making another of case of dark irony that he is behind the whole thing on why Gabriel is becoming so strong.

All the characters fit to the ideology to become part of the teen slasher genre as the Gabriel is a mixture of different killers as to fit to conventions that have been laid down before, and also the use of plot twists.

There is a level of verisimilitude within the trailer as it is a real school that is being shot and the setting with real students but there wouldn’t be a mass murderer on the loose and if there was the school wouldn’t stay open if a student was found dead.

The school: It is a real school so the setting is realistic but then in saying that there is no way a school would stay open after students being found dead around the school nor would parents let their children to attend.

MAtt

Evaluation of Camera Angles and Editing. - Joel

Camera Angles

What went well
Throughout the production of our A2 piece camera angles were prominent through the planning and creation. Although we wanted to create an interesting piece of cinematography, we also wanted to follow the mark scheme and try to rack up on the oppotunies which would allow us to reach the higher levels.

With the use of the three part team, although the only set up we could have had, having three people allowed us to use the camera productivly as we could all say our views and voted on what we thought would be best for the shot which we were taking.
If any disagreements on camera placement a vote would be taken, which would usually work as the third person would be able to cast there creative eye over the placement and pick where to go.

Since we all wanted to get a high grade on the course and gain more skills and knowledge about the technology we were using. As these motives were apparent to all of us hardly any disagreements about what to do happened as we wanted to do the best we could, this would help express more creativity as we had to think about how to access the higher marks and express ourselves through the camera.


Advantages of shots
Different shots allowed us to represent the characters and show the viewers what happens within the production.
To name a few different shots which were used;
Point of View (POV) was used as a medium to show what what being seen through the a character, we used these shots within the trailer as a way to portray a slight disposition of what is happening at that moment within the trailer.
At the start of the trailer a point of view shot is used to show the photo being thrown away, this has been used because the of the seniment needed to throw away the photo, We thought that Chace would be horribly upset at doing this, although we could have shown his face and the emotion of throwin the photo away, the POV would work to the effect that we could see his slight stroke of the photo which would hold more of a feeling than his face as it would portray Chace as having not being able to let go of his past, but he must as his first love has been killed.

We used a POV to show the doctor's note, this would show the detail of the note allowing the viewer to see the note and give away some content that the viewers need to know, and the POv would allow them to see it.

Medium close ups were used alot as it allows the viewer to see alot of what is framed within the shot at a cloesness which they can make out objects and different aspects of mise-en-scene. We have used a medium close within the class room sequences as we wanted to show classmates and full school atmosphere.
We used a Medium close us to introduce the Doctor, this allowed us to show the detail of the character, clothing and scenery.
Although the medium shot is not very creative, it was the best way we could show some aspects of the trailer, it was the only way in which we could show the characters and scene.

We used a tracking shot within the class room sequence to show all of the characters which would be making an appearance in the whole film, although we only showed one of the characters from this shot, the others would have been used outside of the trailer. The tracking shot allowed us to access a different type of shot, we could have used a pan shot, but we would have only gotten one angle of the charatcers and some may have been cut out due to the angle which the camera would have been placed.
The tracking shot allowed us to use some initiative as we used a chair to display support the camera and get a soft movement, better than having someone carry the camera and have there footsteps jolt the camera which would be amateuristic and not fit the atmosphere of the class room sequence

We used a mirror shot to show the death of Perry, this type of shot was used because none of us have used it within a film which we have created. The mirror allowed us to show Gabrelle to exit from the stall and attack Dave(Perry). The Mirror shot allowed us to express some creative flare as we needed to find an effective way to showing Matt shadow over Perry and attack him, but we also wanted to see the reaction of Perry as he saw Matt come attck him, The mirror would allow this as it would reflect everything which we needed to see. If we had chosen a different way to shoot this scene then we would ahve missed out on some screen time of Gabrelle approaching Dave, if we had shot this over the shoulder of Gabrelle we still would have seen Dave's relfection but it would have been restricted to the angle, as the camera woiuld have needed to be pointing down.

We used a worm shot of Ms Gregory (Miss Perkinson), this was used so that we could get a variety of shot, although this shot is not used throughout the conventions of horror films, we wanted to experiment with camera angle as we did not know how it would look in our film, but we liked it and kept it in. It allowed us to fully spin around Miss Perkinson(Ms Gregory) giving different apects of the character, we had an over the shoulder shot, front medium close up shot and POV, this explored the ways in which we have displayed the character, so the worm shot fitted into the portrayal of teh character.

Disadvantages of shots
Through the production we ran into a few problems about the placement of the camera, but these were sorted through the use of a vote which where we came to an agreement on where to place the camera.

when shooting the Gabrelle walking though the crowd scene 1:33 - 1:37 There were countless annoyances, the lower school pupils found it very hard to stare away from the camera, or mess around when they were in the shot. This meant that we had to waste alot of time(More than we would have liked) to get a good hsot were no one would be a distraction or look at the camera.

Through the elevator scene 1:45 - 1:54 the tripod leg is in the mirror at the back of the shot, bottom left. Although I feel like I should not be writing this as it could lower the mark of the film, I think it is a good learning point for us. The leg is only in the shot about half way through but enough for it to be a nuisance.
This was a major disadvantage as it could lower the grade and make our film look very amatueristic. I thought I had to mention this because when we were reviewing the clip on the screen on the camera, the tripod leg did not show, this is because of the tiny screen, everything is much bigger when put onto a Mac or computer screen. reviewing the clips on a computer was were we failed this as we did not do it immediatly and could not re-film when we saw the leg. (As my shirt was completely ruined)

The camera that we used was of a good quality, but is slightly outdated, although this does not really affect the production majorly, the pixelation was annoying to work with and edit, as it makes the final product look rather amateuristic

Through working with different actors and actresses we found out that they sometimes look at the camera when filming, at the time we had done the class room scenes before the crowd walk, so did not notice Elle look at the camera for a split second, although this is nothing major, it can give an amateuristic effect as it can show that we did not use amazing actors.

What to do in the future
Within future projects I will have to concider the childish antics of child and the effect the camera will have on them, allow myself extra time to have to film if people are continueously looking at the camera. Possibly make a sign to tell people that filming is taking place and if they would not look at the camera, which would help the production.

Completely making sure that the tripod and anything that does not have to be in the shot is not in the shot. This would allow my to not have anything that would ruin the set and the mise-en-scene of the shot.

Finding people who have acted before would help the production as they would know what to do and not look at the camera.





Editing


What went well
Through the editing process, I was the main person who was editing the clips, althought taking into account everyones views worked well, as I did not know everything about how it should have been put together. Talking and continually asking questions through the editing process allowed us to learn and piece together the film to its best potential.


Advantages of editing and techniques
We created some amazing effects through the use of "Video FX" within the Imovie software, these effects were; "Ghost Trails" "Fade in" and "Fade out" "Flash".

The effect of "Ghost Trails" was used within the Crowd walk through scene, this was to add a trail of all of the people walking through the shot. Since MAtt was walking in a relitivly straight line, the trail did not effect him much, this allowed the focus of the shot to be of him, although the people walking past the camera did have the effect on them, it was added to draw attention to Matt who didn't have the effect on him, as much as they did.
The tool added a layer of mystery to the scene as it was very ghostly, as the name suggests. Although not completely 'Sci-Fi' the tool could have put it in that context as it was spacey. This relates to our film as Matt's character could transform his personality so suited the spooky theme.

The "Fade in" and "Fade out" were used as a transition for the clips, this allowed the shots to to merge together and create a more horror themed trailer. I used the white fade out what someone died or was attacked and a black fade out when a different scene was used or a transition was deicided by the group.
These fade's were used to help move the story and help the trailer move swiftly through the different clips.

The "Flash" tool was used when there were dead people on the screen, this gave that clip a more juttery and jwanty appearance, the flash was used to disorientate the viewer while seeing the dead people on the screen.

The film was edited with smooth continuity editing which would allow the viewers to understand the plot points and understand them. Although the trailer was done in order, some plot points, we saw were mixed up to create a deeper atmosphere, which is a common convention as plot points are moved around in trailers to create more story and points which can be used to speculate before the movies released.



Disadvantages of editing and techniques
Through the editing process a few minor disagreements took place as to where certain clips would be placed and certain sound clips used. Although this could not be overcomed.

Saving the production was sometimes a slight problem as the Mac which we worked on would occasoinally mess up and close itself, or software isssues would arise. This can also not be avoided as the software itself may mess up sometimes.

Finding the correct variables for the tools used was a slight problem as we had never used them before. This could not have been avoided as we had to learn about the tools we would use when we needed them.

What to do in the future
None of these disadvantages could be avoided as they were sytem errors or a learning curve. Although this seems easy for improvements for the future editing the production and any other productions is a very time consuming process, which would be the only major disadvantage, which again can not be rectified unless 2 or more people are editing at any one time, which would be hard to get the directors decisions on the editing and placement of the clips.

Evaluation by Joel! :D

Video!

This is the final draft of our media production.
This video may not work through the schools blocking system. Staff Proxy will be away around this if it does not show.

- Joel

The voice over has been updated!

Me Matt and Joel have updated the video finally as we have put the finishing touches on the film. We have updates the voice over which we had planed to do awhile ago but some illness and actor disappointment we were not able to do.

the voice over was a conversation between Matt and Mr turner, this was a conversation that the doctor and the patent would be having, as we wanted to give the doctor more of a main part we thought the voice over would allow him to be shown to the audience a little bit more. The conversation took place when Chace knew about Gabrielle and thought that something wrong was going on, this would tell the audience that he knows what is wrong with him, and is trying to fight against it.

The doctor speaks as though he has power over the character, as he says that "I've been able to control him all these years" showing the power is one way, showing a slight tip towards arrogance over the situation and the realism that Gabrelle has actually killed people over the years.

The new updated video will be uploaded by Joel this evening.


Jo
x

Feedback before updating the film :)

Before we re-shooted parts of the film we got a selection of our target audience to watch our trailer so that we could gain feedback and make changes to the suggestions that they gave us. I made a table with the column names (Positive Points, Negative Points, Improvements and Other Comments) and gave each person their own copy to fill in. We allowed them to watch it twice so that they could pick up on things in the second viewing that they may have previously missed and so they could get a better understanding and feeling of our trailer. Below I have typed up all the comments together:

Person A: P.P: - Use of good invisible editing eg. Changing colours in doctors room

- Atmospheric music that fits the genre

- Use of effects: like the blur

- Text and voiceover very creepy N.P: - Plot not particularly clear O.C: :) Person B: P.P: - Good acting N.P: - Voice over maybe a bit quiet and unclear O.C: - I thought it was well good Person C: P.P: - Liked the fading shots - interesting, made me want to know what happens next - Hand on the window good N.P: - Voice over could have been louder I: Mood lighting O.C: Liked it more the second time we watched it as it made more sense Person D: P.P: - Fast jump cuts - emphasises the jumping between the personalities I: Volume adjustments - voiceovers etc. Person E: P.P: - Good music - Tension is built up - Good overview - Good story/ plot I: Give more on including about the storyline so we know what its about Person F: P.P: - Good story - Effective music - Intriguing (tension) I : Make the change more obvious, change something more than the characters top Person G: P.P: - Tense - Background music - Story I: - More flashes of murder :) Person H: P.P: - Able to understand - Good range of shots - Music goes with the film trailer well N.P: - Louder voiceover O.C: Well gone guys :) Since then we have updated the trailer which you will find further down posted by Joel. Jo :)

The American Scream

With time running short but the sun returning
we have agreed that the trailer needs more work
The class room scenes are borning and mean little
in the long run so are being scraped for more
daring shots

MAtt