Welcome

Welcome to my blog, on this blog you will find all the research and planning that i have used to build up towards my final coursework.

Black Nightmare Final Cut

Here is our final cut, in this final cut you will notice that we have considerably changed a large amount in comparison with the two previous rough cuts, such as using different editing styles by which we cut down many of the takes and sped them up to help build suspense and tension, we also used more mise-en scene and used a bucket of guts and leftover meat from the butchers to give a sense of verisimilitude  We have also taken extra time to take into consideration the types of shots used and the editing done to make this final cut as best as possible.

Evaluation Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When we first set out to make our film we were looking at previous slasher movies which had been made and were successful, we took notes and inspiration from others to make our film opening as good as possible, some of the movies that we looked at we used some intertextuality such as the title of our film and the ideas of using a masked killer.


When we did our film we tried using some of the common conventions examples from previous movies made, these examples that we based our film opening around were: 

• Halloween ( Wes Craven, 1996 ). This films story line is relative to ours by which the stalking scene in which the killers identity is hidden ( Barthes narrative enigma theory ). We also used this theory in our opening to help build up suspense and tension.

• Texas Chainsaw Massacre  ( Tobe Hooper, 1974 )was the next film that influenced our film opening. The reason that we based our movie around this film is because we thought our film showed some aspect of Todarov's stages of equilibrium. We believe that our movie shows this by the use of dis-equilibrium by which we cut back and forth between two sets of time ( equilibrium and dis-equilibrium ). 

Evaluation Q2 Representations

All of the actors and actresses viewed in our opening scene are aged 16 - 17. We wanted to make our killer seem a lot older aged about 30 so that this would help our secondary audience which is people aged in there 20's. This helped us allow our film appeal to a larger audience.

The characters in our film are all from West Yorkshire and have Yorkshire accents, this is  not a very commonly known accent this means that people from other countries such as America, some parts of Europe and even parts of England would not understand what is been said. Therefor we would not aim our target audience to be Americans. Despite the Yorkshire accents the movie is a slasher film which commonly many people are not overly fussed about the accents in which the characters speak nor the location in which the film is made as they are only interested in the gore and the thrill they gain from the movie.


Characters that are viewed in our opening scene

The first characters that are viewed in the opening scene of out film are, the final girl, the scream queen, the jock and the killer at certain points. The final girl in our film is the classic stereotype of the final girl with brunette hair and wearing clothes that signifies she is a rather nerdy person who is intellectual and has a very small social life. At the beginning of our film she is seen getting out of a car and carrying her studying books in her arms down the road. The next character that we show in our opening scene is the scream queen, she is typically blonde and busty and sexually active, in the opening scene she is seen exiting the car with the final girl and her boyfriend (the jock). Finally the last character that we view in the opening scene is the killer, we only view him a couple of times throughout the opening scene cutting back and forth between shots. He is your typical killer with a certain weapon which is relevant to his history or his profession. I have connoted my characters as the stereotypical characters you would imagine to find in a slasher movie.

 

Final Girl 

The final girl in our film we based around Laurie Strode who was the final girl in the classic Halloween.

She represents the stereotypical final girl carrying her study books as she is getting out of the car and is wearing her school clothes with her skirt rather low to connote that she is rather intellectual and has a minimum social life.

 

Scream Queen

The scream queen in our film opening is based on the classic stereotypical scream queen from all slasher genre's. She represents the stereotypical scream queen as she is blonde and busty. She also represents the role well as when she gets out of the car she walks inside the house with her boyfriend ( the jock ) and we see further into the opening scene the pair of them going into the bedroom and shutting the curtains behind them to connote the fact they are a partaking in sexual activity.

Killer

Finally the killer in our film opening is based on many classic slasher movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween where both the killers are wearing masks to hide there identity. We also included this in our film to build narrative enigma until the end of the film where the killer is finally revealed. He wears a black mask to hide his identity and his common choice of weapon is a meat cleaver. The reason for this is due to the fact that we linked our killer to have had a past as a butcher who over years psychological obsession with a certain teenage girl becomes a killer.

Evaluation Q3 Distribution

Distribution is one of the three main areas in the film business:

1. Production
2. Distribution
3. Exhibition

Distribution is when a film is made available to watch by the public after it has been distributed by a film distributor. This can be accomplished in many ways; firstly there is theatrical releasing where the film is able to be viewed in a cinema, next there is home entertainment releasing in which the movie is placed onto a DVD and is made available to purchase in stores or online via streaming sights such as Love Film and Netflix. Finally there is releasing on television programs such as Film 4 etc.

Distributing films for some film companies is relatively easy, for example, major film companies such as Universal and Paramount as they are conglomerate companies meaning that they have subsidiaries which help distribute their movies for them. However smaller film companies such as the two that we are looking at as part of our media coursework Working Title and Warp find it some what harder to distribute their movies, and some end up not being able to make it to cinema listings and are placed directly onto DVD's. This generally tends to happen to smaller film companies (indie companies  which do not have a lot of money to make high end movies.

Evaluation Q4 Target Audience

 

As a group our aim was to target our film at a audience of 15 - 24 and as our additional audience 24 -34. We chose to make this our target audience due to the fact of the genre of our movie been a slasher.

Age Restrictions

Below are the recommended age rating certificates that have been given by the British Board of Film Classification ( bbfc )  are seen at the beginning of every movie :

                            Suitable for all audiences

                            Parental Guidance 

 

                   

                    Cinema release suitable for 12 years and older

                  

         

                     Suitable for 15 years and over

             

        

   

                   Suitable for adults only

                    Adult works for licenced premises only 

BBFC places these recommendations to helps parents, carers and other viewers make informed choices about what they watch. It is displayed under the title and running time for each film in every cinema.

The bffc has two key guidelines in which they apply, these are :

• First, films and videos should be allowed to reach the widest audience appropriate for their theme and treatment.
• Second, adults should be free to choose what they see, provided it remains within the law and is not potentially harmful.

 

Who our film wouldn't apply too?

Our film is a slasher movie which in general are aimed at a target audience of 15 - 21 year olds, however sometimes they can have a secondary audience which is aimed at people aged 24 - 34. The genre of the movie however impacts the audience that will view the movie. As our movie is a slasher the older audiences will not enjoy the gore and the thrill that a slasher movie provides, neither would those who are under the age of 15. Therefore our movie if it was to be viewed by the BBFC would likely to be banded under 15+  this is because it portrays sexual activity and violence which under the BBFC guidelines places the movie at a 15+.

Here are two example slasher movies with age restrictions given by the BBFC

Texas Chainsaw Massacre  ( Marcus Nispel, 2003 )                                                 

                                                             

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a slasher genre which is about a group of friends passing through are stalked and hunted down by a deformed killer with a chainsaw in order to sustain his poor family who can only afford to eat what they kill.

 

This film includes scenes of violence, alcohol and drug taking, profanity and scenes of sexual activity/ nudity. This would place this movie at a age rating of 18+.

 

 

 

 

Halloween ( John Carpenter, 1978 )

 

Halloween is another classic slasher film which is about a psychotic murderer institutionalised since childhood for the murder of his sister, escapes and stalks a bookish teenage girl and her friends while his doctor chases him through the streets.

The film includes scenes of sexual activity, violence and gore, profanity and also scenes of drug taking and excessive use of alcohol drinking. This film would place this movie with a age rating of 18+.

Audience feedback

We asked a group of teenagers, ages 16-17, to watch our rough cut and give feedback as it'd be useful to know what they think because they're in range of our target audience ( 15-25 ), then from this feedback we can see what worked and what didn't, which we can then use if we were to remake improvements to our film.

Our audience thought that our film was very good and was a suitable for the age range we had targeted our movie at. They said throughout the movie the scenes of violence where the killer is swinging the meat cleaver at the meat was very violent and that the use of intestines and left over meat which we used as our props gave the movie a more gory effect and made it scarier. They also commented on the choice of camera angles and editing used which helped the movie a lot better as the fast paced editing helped build suspense through out the film and the cross cutting was used very well.

Overall they said that our movie was relatively good and they thought that it was suitable for the correct target audience that we had decided to aim it at been 15 - 24. They also said that if it was aimed at audience any older or younger they didn't think that it would be appealing to there age range as it was to gory for younger audiences.

Evaluation Q5 How did you attract your audience ?

To address our audience we made our slasher film appeal to the target audience group we were aiming for, this was the age group of 15 - 24 year old's. The reason for this age group was because we thought collectively as a group that certain aspects of our film would benefit this age range and the filming industry, this is due to how we have made our film and the certain  types of editing we have used and the soundtracks we have created which helps build up suspense and tension which are key factors which slasher movies require to be successful.

YouTube 

One of the way in which we helped attract our audience was by posting our rough cuts and videos of our film on YouTube, by doing this, it enabled us to get audience feedback from our footage which allowed us too take note on the certain aspects in which they thought were good and bad. This then allowed us to make any improvements on our final video to ensure that it was to a good quality.

Use of theories 

Another way to attract our audience was to use Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory and Levi Strauss's Binary opposite theory. Mulvey's theory focuses on the girls body within a film which it is objectified in slasher films which is used directly to appeal to the male audience. This is generally done by having a female character in a film or TV show who is wearing revealing clothes which show some of her body. This is to draw men into watching the movie. In our movie our scream queen was wearing a pair of tight skinny jeans instead of a mini skirt or shorts, the reason for this was due to the fact we couldn't use nudity or reveal to much of our actress, however the skinny jeans still worked overall.

Facebook 

Facebook enabled was another way which allowed us to use various techniques to address our audience, by using Facebook we were able to also post our video's on the social network site where many of our friends and age group are able to view our videos. This was good as people could leave feedback in the comments box at the bottom of our post and could give direct feedback about our film and give quick responses. These responses allowed us to make a well informed decision on any adaptations that we could make to our film to improve it.

Evaluation Q6 Technology

To create the media that we are making in school we would not be able to do any of this without the development of digitization which has allowed us to use new technology to create such good quality movies and be able to stream our videos directly onto YouTube and other sights. The technology that we use at school to create out media is as follows:

• Apple Mac's
• Final Cut Pro (film editing software)
• Garage Band (musical software)
• HD video cameras
• Blogger
• YouTube
• IMDB

The main vital piece of equipment that we use most is the Apple Mac's. The reason that we use Apple Mac's instead of ordinary dell computers is due to the fact that they have a much larger storage device in comparison with ordinary computers which means that we are able to have all the vital software which we require on them for editing, creating music and other purposes. They are also a lot quicker than normal computers which wouldn't be able to play back footage as well as the Apple Mac's.

Final Cut Pro is a editing software where the footage that we have taken is edited. Final Cut Pro is  a very advanced piece of technology and is very like the software in which major film companies would use when editing there movies.

Garage Band is a musical software for creating music and certain sound effects for films. The music created can be used to make ambient sounds which can be played quietly in the background of the film. The sound effects that can be made can be applied to film openings as diagetic or non-diagetic music which can create an audio bridge at times. This is useful for our media.

HD Video Cameras that we use to shoot the footage for our film openings are high end cameras which originally movie companies didn't use to create their movies but due to the development of digitization they are now starting to become more popularly used as they are cheaper, less expensive and easier to use. They provide us with the ability to shoot our footage in HD and upload it straight onto final cut pro quickly.

Blogger is the place where we update posts on our progress of our media and share what we have made and what we have learnt during  our lessons and any research that we have conducted into finding out about media studies.

YouTube is a website which has been around for a while and is site that allows you upload, and view videos that have been shared from all over the world. We can use YouTube  to upload our films and gain feedback from people.

IMDB is a website which provides us with plenty of media information about films that have been made in the past, present movies and future upcoming movies. This site also tells you all about the movies information such as the cast, budget, director and much much more. This is ideal for when we are assessing or analysing past film openings.

Evaluation Q7 Learnt since Prelim

When i first joined media the first task i was set was to create a prelim, my initial knowledge on films was very bleak and i didn't understand how films were made and anything to do with them. My first insight into some ways in which films where made and some types of shots that were commonly used in film where those that Dave had taught me in lesson. These shots were, shot reverse shot, the 180 degree rule and the match on action. When i was set my prelim i had to incorporate these shots at least once.

Since i did my prelim my understanding and knowledge on how films are made and what goes into making them a success has broadened. I have learnt since shooting my prelim about new and various different shot techniques, angle, editing styles and much more. I have learnt this throughout the year from doing research and also learning from Dave during lessons. This new understanding of how the film industry works and how films are made had enabled me to include these techniques in my own work such as my film opening which myself and some of the other lads in the class made as part of our coursework. One of the fundamental roles that i learnt during the making of the film opening was time management and scheduling everything to make sure that i was on top of all the work that i had to have completed.

When we filmed our film opening we had to create a inbox online on the social network Facebook so that as a group we were able to stay in contact with one another and update each other on when and where we were going to meet to film our opening and also to confirm whether or not we were available to ensure that we did not waste time. Obviously this didn't help due to the fact some of us had jobs and other activities on certain dates so we had schedule it for an appropriate time when we were all available.

When we did our prelim we lacked mise-en-scene and we didn't include and props our outfits for our characters which meant that it lacked detail and didn't look very good. However since i have made my prelim the work that i have produced since has incorporated these techniques which has meant that the my films are now better. 

In conclusion the improvements since my prelim are a lot better and have made the work that i now produce a lot better and to a higher quality. This is due to the fact that my understanding is a lot better and i am more aware of which shot types, angles, props etc to use and my time management is a lot better than it originally was.  

  

DW - Teaser Trailer

DW - Improvements to rough cut 2

From the feedback we received from our media teacher and from our target audience we decided on making improvements, such as when it cuts from the steps down the stairs to the credits the foot steps are not in time with the sound so we need to go back and edit this. Also the credits could do with some improvements so that they anchor the slasher genre because they don't relate to the genre, and at the end of these credits the title ' Black Nightmare'  is shown, but it was boring and didn't signify the genre so we'll have to edit this also and possibly add some special effects which signify the genre more.

Psycho

And some of the shots that we have are too long and that they loose the build up of tension , instead these long shots provide oppositional reading which is what we are not trying to provide instead we need preferred reading so we'll have to go back and edit these shots so that they're shorter. Also the violent scene could do with some adjusting because it was too long so we'll go back and use shorter takes and include some fast pace editing, a good example of lots of takes and fast pace editing is the shower scene in Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock  ,1960 ) so we'll take influence from this and use it for out violent scene.

And for the scene where the killer is chopping of the bits of meat it wasn't aggressive enough with the meat as a killer would normally be. Also the sound could of been more effective to make the audience feel uncomfortable, for example squelching of the meat when the killer handles it. So this will be another scene that we'll have to either go back and edit with the sounds or re-shoot.

DW - Improvements to rough cut 1

Insufficient lighting.

From the feedback we received from our media teacher we've learnt that we need to go back and re-shoot and re-edit, such as improve on the scenes we did have for example with the chopping up of the meat scene there's insufficient lighting so we'll have to go back an re-shoot this with better lighting, and the killer also didn't seem like a killer because he wasn't aggressive enough with the chopping up and was to neat and gentle, whereas a killer wouldn't care with his swings and would be much more aggressive. Also there should of been more blood and squeamish sound effects to make the audience feel uncomfortable with this scene , so we'll go back and record better sounding and even put in some ambient sound to make it more clearer.

Also with the opening titles they need a lot of editing because there's just no meaning to them at all and there's some spelling mistakes, and it looks stupid when it says subtitle after each title because we forgot to remove this so we'll have to go back and change this.

DW - Audience feedback for Black Nightmare Rough cut 2

We showed our media teacher our rough cut and recorded the feedback he gave us, which we can then go on to improve our film opening with.

Title

Firstly he noticed that with our subtitles at the start they're out of time with the scene with the killer walking down the stairs, and also some spelling mistakes in the actual credits so we need to go back and edit these, and he also picked up on the font we used as there wasn't much thought given into these credits so when we go back and edit these we should think about whether to use san serif font or serif font and why we've chosen to use this font, also at the start we didn't include our idents which we should of done. Then at the end of these subtitles the title of our film 'Black Nightmare' is shown but there wasn't much editing done for our title and it doesn't provide any exposition for the film genre which we were trying to so we should go back and change this so it looks more like a slasher genre title, and at the end of these titles our media teacher suggested we should have some sort of transition to the next scene to provide some continuity so it doesn't look odd, and we could use a distinctive noise or action to audio bridge from the credits to the next scene. Also the titles can be stretched out throughout our opening they don't need to be all at the start so we can experiment with this and see how it works.

Long Take

Then he thought that our long takes needed cutting down and shortening so they have more of an effect so we'll need to go back and edit this, and when we cut back from the stalk scene to the killer's room we could edit it so the cut back scene are distort to distinguish the difference in time and place. Also he noticed at points where our actors look at the camera so we need to cut out these so it's more realistic.

Then instead of re-shooting the chopping up of the meat where it's too slow we could speed of the chopping motion with the swing and add a loud bang on each chop so the aggression is more realistic from this killer, and we need some more continuity with our scenes so for example link up the chop with the closing of the door.

Also we need to work on our sound and cut out the wind interference so to replace this we should record ambient sound, and add all the sound that we're going to include in our final piece, for example we're going to re shoot the scene with the chopping up of the meat and include squelching noises of the meat and repulsive sounds to make the audience feel uncomfortable.

Violent Scene

And to make our violent scene more dramatic we need to break it up more and make it quicker with fast pace editing, and skip from where the killer picks up his victim to putting her into the car with the door on the car shutting with a final swing of the chopping up of the meat.

DW - Target audience

Black Nightmare is targeted at the teen audience, 15- 24 years, with a BBFC rating of 15 because this is mainly what the slasher genre is aimed at. A good example of this is Friday The 13th, where the teen audience would find it easier to relate to the characters as they're also mainly of the teen age in this film, and with our film Black Nightmare the casting are also of the teen age so our audience can relate to it as with Friday The 13th.

A good example for our film to relate to is Scream 4 ( Wes Craven, 2011 ) as it also has a BBFC rating of 15 and has characters of the teen age just like our film Black Nightmare. Also the protagonists in this film are the teenagers which is like in our film where the teenagers are the protagonists also , and the antagonist being the killer just like in our Black Nightmare film. This film also contains high levels of violence involving a lot of blood which is what the slasher genre audience expecting with this genre and with Black Nightmare we've tried to include these with violent scenes and lots of blood.

We didn't want to restrict our audience to just female or just male so our casting was chosen to provide interests from both genders, and we did this by having 2 female character and a male , but also our killer is of an older age and this helps to appeal to our secondary audience which is just older than our primary target audience and is form 24-34 years of age.

DW - Final cut audience feedback

After we released our final cut on to Youtube we invited some of our target audience in to watch and give us instant feedback.

Firstly they thought that the opening sequence worked well with the titles and the build up of suspension with the non-deigetic soundtrack because they said they felt the tension build up. Also with the point of view shots  from the killer they thought that it did well at giving a different perspective , because we didn't just get the view of the teenagers instead it allowed us to understand how the killer would see things. Then they thought that our violent scene was a much better improvement from before where it wasn't believable at all because this time it was more realistic with the short takes and the cut away shots, they thought that the slow motion of the violent scene worked well as well because it gave this weird feeling for them.

However they thought we could of done more to reassure the audience who the main characters were, for example we hardly showed or final girl on screen but had the scream queen's boyfriend on screen for longer,  whereas we could of had more shots of the final girl as she'd be the main character for the rest of the film.

This is some evidence from 1 of our target audience that gave us feedback.

DW - Audience feedback for Black Nightmare rough cut 1

We asked a group of teenagers, ages 16-17, to watch our rough cut and give feedback as it'd be useful to know what they think because they're in range of our target audience ( 15-25 ), then from this feedback we can see what worked and what didn't,  which we can then go on to make improvements to our film.

          

They thought the start worked well with the variable focus acting in away to provide narrative enigma with the killer's footsteps walking down the stairs. However, when it cuts from these steps down the stairs to the credits they noticed that the foot steps are not in time with the sound so we need to go back and edit this. Also the credits could do with some improvements so that they anchor the slasher genre because our audience didn't think they related to the genre, and at the end of these credits the title ' Black Nightmare'  is shown, but our audience thought that it was boring and didn't signify the genre so we'll have to edit this also and possibly add some special effects which signify the genre more.

Also our audience felt that some of the shots that we have are too long and that they loose the build up of tension , instead these long shots provide oppositional reading which is what we are not trying to provide instead we need preferred reading so we'll have to go back and edit these shots so that they're shorter. However they thought that the point of view shots from the killer's perspective in the bushes worked well and also provided the on going narrative enigma which is what we were aiming for, but the actually violent scene they thought could do with some adjusting because it was too long they thought so we'll go back and use shorter takes and include some fast pace editing, a good example of lots of takes and fast pace editing is the shower scene in Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock ,1960 ) so we'll take influence from this and use it for out violent scene.



 Then they thought that the mise-en-scene for the killer's room worked well as the pictures on the wall gave the sense of this killer's stalking obsession with the victims, and also the blood on the killer's apron worked well along with his old black boots, however for the scene where the killer actually strikes his victim with the knife they thought it could of been faster and more aggressive as it doesn't look as scary it would if it was aggressive, also blood could of been used in this scene for the blows on the victim so we'll go back and re-shoot this scene.

And for the scene where the killer is chopping of the bits of meat our audience felt that he wasn't aggressive enough with the meat as a killer would normally be. Also the sound could of been more effective so make the audience feel uncomfortable, for example squelching of the meat when the killer handles it. So this will be another scene that we'll have to either go back and edit with the sounds or re-shoot.

DW - Slasher audience

The Audience:
Different genres attract different audiences, different films will attract different ages, races and cultures, and each genre's audience will hold expectations for their genre.
Slasher movies are a sub-genre of horror. The audiences will expect generally high levels of violence involoving a lot of blood, and most genres have the binary opposites with the protagonists being a group of teenagers and the atagonists the killer. Friday the 13th (Danny Steinmann, 1985) is a good example of this and in showing the narrative structure of the contemporary slasher film, with the killer with a mysterious identity who attacks the group of young teenagers.
The first box office success was John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). The film cost only three-hundred-thousand dollars to create and made roughly fifty-million dollars, and films like this persuaded Hollywood to continue creating them which is where the slasher genre was made.

Narrative Structure:
Slasher films rarely stray from Tordov’s structure of narrative, and a classic film that demonstrates this is John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). For example this structure starts with a state of equilibrium, where the couple of teenagers are being as a normal teenaged couple. There is then a disruption to the equilibrium, where a killer begins to stalk them. The disruption is then noticed when the girl is murdered. The attempt to get things back to normal is when the killer is sent to a mental asylum, but then breaks out. Equilibrium is then reinstated when either the ‘killer’ is killed or the final teenager is killed.