Media Evaluation for planning A2 film: Commentary script

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Creating a horror film, we knew that research into this specific genre would be important for conveying our film in a professional and effective manner. Although we had a plot and character outline, we did not necessarily know how to put this together with other aspects such as sound, script, camera angles and shots to create tension. To understand the conventions of a horror, we set about analysing some well-known horror films such as ‘Triangle’ and ‘Scream I’.

Scream I specifically, is a film which uses its plot to play upon horror conventions in an obvious way to both viewer and character. From this we were able to see what horror film conventions were popular as they would be stressed in this film to parody conventions yet surprisingly creating a scary film.

From studying many horror’s we found these to be the top factors of focus.

-The sound

- The sound in a horror film always starts at its quietest with music throughout building up when certain horrific or defining moments are about to occur in order to create tension until a climatic scare. We have made sure our final piece has a buzz track which continues from beginning to end with only a few silence breaks in scenes to add tension. Our use of a background accompaniment is of great importance as we have little dialogue and with sound being a key element maybe even the most important, we needed an aspect which would consistently convey the horror genre. We recorded our own diegetic

-Situations:

-From our research characters have a certain naivety about them in horror films often very unaware to the potential danger which is always so close to them. We did this by making our main character follow the usual speech in horror films asking ‘hello, who is it?’ when a knock at the door starts. He also does not notice when a figure appears at the front door as a long shot reveals him walking away from the door. The sense that danger being so close creates high tension as we are aware of things which someone who is closer to the danger is not.

The concept of Isolation:

Horror films are generally set in isolated locations. This creates high tension as we get the sense that the character or characters are more vulnerable while they are alone and cut off from the outside world indicating a barrier between their isolation and safety. The theme of isolation is played upon hugely in our short film as the protagonist is the only character throughout apart from one other brief character appearance outside the door and at the end when he is grabbed from behind. Extras are used for the surprise party with no specific person drawn upon. This centralisation of our main character although there are others involved in the film further emphasizes how he is alone facing any danger which occurs.

Characters:

- In most horror film, the central character is a relatively young attractive female stereotyping naivety and vulnerability. We used a male to contradict the common conventions and tried to create a greater fear among the audience as even though our male protagonist represents a strong and worthy opponent against danger, he himself is also scared in his own home. This is shown by the build-up of his panic until his release at the surprise party. It is also important to consider that although we have used many horror conventions lulling the audience into believing our complete theme is horror, yet our plot is based on the fact that someone is in his house still setting up for the surprise party. The character is never in any real danger, we are only led to believe this by the protagonist point of view filmed piece. Therefore the use of a male as the main focus shows how signs of normality were present from the start and challenging the usual form of a horror.

Setting

The setting of a conventional horror varies on the intended plot however it is usually always set partially at night to use darkness playing on fear of the unknown. As ours is a short film, we have set the whole piece in a dark setting as the character returns home from work in the evening.

From looking at the combination of horror conventions and creating the film ourselves, we found the sound to be the main element which could enhance or demeanour the piece. Therefore we spent a large amount of our time in editing stages, focussing on timings of sound entrances and transitions, as well as perfecting the clarity of voice overs. We knew by looking at the main element needed for producing a horror genre film, we could build our piece up to a professional standard.

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

Throughout our main products and ancillary texts, we have tried to keep a consistency using identical sound motifs for both our radio trailer and our main film, also known as the ‘house style’.

Much like we have done for research of the film itself, we researched into audio clips for our radio trailer and looked at film trailers when creating our own poster. This allowed us to see what we needed to do to convey our theme in an interesting and enticing form yet keeping it directly linked to the film itself.

We found that in many audio trailers, that much like in the film, sound builds in a crescendo from beginning to end creating a tense moment when the silent climax is reached as its contrast is so drastic. We executed this method for both audio trailer and short film alike however the audio trailer was at a faster pace having to explore all elements of the film itself yet keeping to a time limit of around 30 seconds. A longer time limit of five minutes is available for the film therefore sound can remain quieter for longer to express and even larger change of dynamic when the loud and tense end is occurring.

When looking into producing a visual advertisement for our film, we researched similar professional pieces in the horror genre. We used main elements which were found in the vast majority of posters we looked at such as dark colours, relevant information such as the title, age rating and credits as well as a fitting image to display part of the plot. Our original poster had a black background representing the darkness of our film’s setting and also creating an element of mystery linking directly to the unawareness of the protagonist in the plot. It also played on typical horror conventions with black being a symbol of evil and negativity. However this poster was found to be

unsuccessful in conveying professionalism and the theme when we received feedback. We altered the poster to show a close up of the protagonists face much like on most poster’s with a hand covering his face to imply an attack. The slight distorted style of the image and the colour contrast change creates an element of mystery. Most of the poster is filled with a close up image of the protagonist, to introduce him to the viewer and to signify that he will be centralised throughout the film.

The colour scheme we have used throughout all ancillary texts is important to consider as this is an aspect which reflects our high attention to house style. Black, white and red are the main colours we have used for two reasons, firstly to keep a professional look about all media products helping the audience to link all three pieces together (our radio trailer, short film and film poster), but to also play on colour symbolism. We have used black to represent darkness and the unknown, red for its relation to danger and white as a contrasting colour to the black background metaphorically representing our heroic protagonist surrounded by the dark surroundings; white central title within a black background.

The combination of all is highly successful as both film and audio use similar buzz tracks making the audience instantly create a link between the two from the recognisable tense music motifs. The poster although a visual and not dependent at all upon audio, relates to the short film itself with an image of the protagonist being grabbed from behind with a hand covering his mouth and action which takes place near the end of the film.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We received audience feedback from all who viewed our film pitch and were able to use suggestions on what went well and what could be improved to help us develop an even stronger final piece. From our audience feedback we were commended for our research into the conventions of our specified genre. We had hoped that this would be reflected in the screening as this was an area we had paid particular attention to forming strong in depth judgements on other films of the horror genre and using the points which were included in most such as tension building music and using an unsuspecting protagonist.

Much of our feedback focussed around the concept of lighting and how this could be improved. Our original shooting was too light therefore to create the darkness we needed to edit the saturation levels which in turn made the video grainy and too dark to clearly see the image on screen. Suggestions were made on how we could avoid this by shooting with natural darkness possibly filming later in the day, a point which we then used for the final filming of our piece and allowed us to successfully tackle this issue.

We recently held a feedback session with another paired production team and received critique on our first film draft, audio trailer and poster.

The Set Up Poster

Jack’s feedback

- The poster highlights the fact that it’s a horror and good camera angles have been used throughout. Although it follows the usual conventions of the horror genre the bottom quarter is empty, space which then is wasted where relevant film information could be inserted.

Ben’s feedback

- The poster looks professional with good use of lighting and contrast of colours. The emotions could be taken further specifically focussing on the fear of the protagonist and although it has purposely been kept simplistic it may be too simple. There is a good use of signifiers.

The Set Up Radio trailer

Jack’s feedback

- It follows the typical conventions of a horror well with strong signifiers which all can relate to. However it could be improved by making the sound on the ‘surprise’ clearer and having a more panicky performance and general speech from the male protagonist. Ben’s feedback

Ben’s feedback

- There is a good range of sounds used throughout and the story is told well without reaching the climax before the intended point. I agree that the ‘surprise’ could be made clearer yet other than this the buzz track is superb.

The Set Up Short Film

Ben’s feedback

- There is a good used of camera shots which build tension well with a good used of sound and clever twist with the surprise party element. The film could be improved by having better fluidity with its transitions and the sound track builds too early in the film making it more difficult to build an intense climax.

Jack’s feedback

- Tension builds well with the music although it does build up very wuickly something which could take more time to pace the film correctly with the action taking place. Certain parts drag on slightly before the surprise particularly in the bathroom scene which drags on unnecessarily.

A Facebook group was also created in order to establish a wider public view of our film from impartial sources. A large group of around 200 people were invited to the event in order to receive the biggest scale of results possible. The event wall included a small comment about our media film and how our production team would appreciate feedback, with a link on the page to vimeo.com where our short film could be viewed. The comments received were complimentary, with some critique. One viewer commented, mentioning that that the film needed work on transitions between shots with others liking this comment to show their agreement with this point.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout the development stages we needed to use many different types of technology to create our final short film. Using most of these was a new experience to our production team and complications were found along the way. However we used our initiative and help from others more qualified in the field to resolve these issues.

We knew how to use You Tube a key factor allowing us to conduct most of our research as we needed to look into movie trailers and sound effects for our own piece. When trying to build our own soundtrack first for our film and secondly for our radio trailer, we visited You Tube and typed in the search engine the relevant information such as ‘copyright free sound effects’. This came up with a selection of sound effects which we could explore before choosing the best accompaniment for our specified genre. We then used google to search for a You Tube to Mp3 converter to be able to download the copyright free music we had found. After copying the URL from You Tube and downloading the clip, this was then saved in iTunes where we could refer back to it when necessary, with later use of final cut express and garage band. We also found sound effects on independent sound effects based websites which we were able to download free of charge. We checked that all of these websites distributed copyrighted material before downloading.

When planning to film our short piece, we came up with a schedule in order to organise the actors and production team. In our first meeting we reviewed the work which would need to take place over the following weeks. The production team and actors used mobile phones and facebook as a means of communication when arranging to meet for shooting.

In the review meeting we shot a sample scene using a small digital compact camera testing shots, angles and lighting. However the camera could not process the dark lighting we needed to create a tense atmosphere and show the correct setting for our film. Therefore the final result for our sample scene was too dark and pixellated, creating an amateur looking piece. We decided to instead use a

handheld video camera where we could produce more sophisticated and detailed shots. We also used a tripod to ensure that all shots were steady.

The production crew from previous planning discussions, had decided that a whole day of filming would allow us the time to shoot our film and re shoot any clips which had issues still standing. We met at 10 in the morning planning to film until around 6 in the evening, however when we arrived we realised that the natural lighting in the day time was hindering the effective and conventional darkness needed to convey our horror theme. Instead of shooting our main piece, we used the day to become more comfortable with the camera and working out the ways in which we could shoot on our rescheduled date.

After filming footage and playing this back, we realised that the microphone had not picked up the sound. Initially, we did not know what had caused this so set about changing the input of the microphone, which we had connected to the handheld and also checked basic faults such as whether the microphone was plugged in correctly to the camera. After this did not solve the issue, we used a method of trial and error as well as asking a more experienced camera operator for their advice. We eventually realised there was an issue with the volume control as it was on a low level but now knowing the sound was being picked up, we could edit the volume of sound once we had uploaded our shots into final cut express.

Considering angles and shots, the testing day proved to be an unexpected necessity as many shots we had proposed in our previous planning did not fit with conveying the theme or professionalism. For transition of our protagonist moving round the house from the bedroom to the kitchen, we set shots which we would later edit using cuts. First with the character leaving his room with a front view, then from behind leading up to the stairs before a high angled birds eye view shot was used into a shot of him from the front running down the stairs and turning to the kitchen These four shots played back on the camera one after the other, made the shots look very disjointed and the amount of shots in one scene proved to be unnecessary. We changed this, filming half the shots, firstly with our protagonist shot from the front as he leaves the bedroom and secondly shot from below as he runs down the stairs turning into the kitchen. The obvious nature of where he is heading made extra shots at this point irrelevant. This is one specific example where we had planned many shots to build on conventions, yet we found when editing that the amount of shots slowed the intended quick pace.

The use of mobile phones and facebook for the production team keeping in contact with the cast was of vital importance. We initially sent group text messages to eligible members of the cast and after we had confirmations, these people were sent constant reminder text messages about the date of filming. This means of communication was of high significance as the venue for the surprise party scene was not finalised until late on in the filming stages meaning that all cast needed to be up to date and aware of the change of venue to make sure they all attended. As well as this, a group was created on facebook specifically for the surprise party stating the time and date of the event. Facebook groups give the invitee the choice to accept or decline an invite therefore we were able to keep track of who would and wouldn’t be attending the filming session. It also works with a system whereby posts can be uploaded by anyone on the invite which allowed full communication between production and cast as actors could write on the invite wall and we could answer any queries they may have about the day.

In the editing stages of our film, we used final cut express, software which allowed us to edit video clips and their audio as independent pieces, before we put them into a sequence. The production team having some experience with audio editing software such as audacity found it easy to adapt to this type of technology. Knowing the order in which we would place scenes had previously been set yet we had only planned the transition between each mainly based on cuts much like in most horror films. We felt this would create a quick pace about our short film in contrast with our ending where we knew we wanted to use a fade transition into credits. Our exploration of sound placement and transitions lay mainly with trial and error as we tried many different transitions all between the same shots in order to be certain that the transitions we had used were exemplary.

To edit the sound levels we used a tool which showed us the sound waves of the audio clips and used the select tool to select points in the audio. These points could then be manipulated up and down changing the frequency to make the sound louder and quieter. When considering transitions, we found difficulty with the cross fade effect allowing cross fading between shots. The quick setting of the effect made its addition to the video irrelevant. Therefore we had to select cross fade options using a previewing screen which showed both clips and the cross fade between in a zoomed state. We were then able to trial and error changing the length of the fading process by creating a larger time span writing 3 seconds in the relevant box, changing from its previous 0.5 seconds.

Our radio trailer relying solely on audio meant that overlapping interventions of music needed to occur therefore we needed to use separate layers building them gradually. When we wanted to listen to one section of music and not another yet both were meant to be playing simultaneously, we were able to mute a layer of audio temporarily. This was of great importance as when sound difficulties occurred with minor in corrections, we could mute each layer built on top of one another and gradually unmute them in a trial and error process to find the problem.

Although we had a structured plan for both our short film and audio trailer which we kept to as a basis for each, our main method for perfecting our pieces was trial and error which allowed us to explore all ideas posed by the production team before deciding on the best possible outcome.

Considering technology we had never used before, our complete A2 coursework was posted as a blog using Blogger.com. A blog allows you to share information on the internet ready for viewing with an option to comment on each post. It also allows you to embed information such as links and HTML. When uploading posts such as Microsoft word documents, we used Slideshare.net to present each post on a more professional looking level using the HTML option. Slideshare permits you to upload files from your desktop, and creates a sophisticated form keeping each post concise unlike posting text straight into the text box on your blog and filling a whole screen on a web page with just one post. The blog itself allows you to upload many posts in a chronological order with an easy format for anyone to navigate through with ease and is an aesthetically pleasing way to explain the planning process.

We also used Vimeo a website which allowed us to upload our short film and put it on our blog at various stages of the production; this will be beneficial to us at the evaluation stages of our project as we can view how much progress we have made.