Fatal Mistake Opening Sequence

This is the final version of our opening sequence, Fatal Mistake. Enjoy :)

Evaluation

Evaluation of my Post Production

Introduction

Our brief was to create a group project, in which we had to create a short opening of a film sequence, in the Thriller genre. We must all demonstrate clear evidence of individual contribution. We also had to create an electronic portfolio, which meant we created a blog on www.blogger.com. On this website, we had to show evidence of research which included codes and conventions of a thriller, secret window opening analysis and Saul Bass. We also created a genre mood board, researched into storyboards and I discussed with my group members which films inspired me. We researched the exploration of Barthes, Propp, Todorov and Propp theory. Our film followed Barthes Enigma Code, which means the narrative will establish enigmas or mysteries as the film does along. The narrative functions to establish and then solve these mysteries.


The planning consisted of brainstorming possible locations for filming. Some of these included Coity Castle, Pencoed Common, Coy church and Ogmore Castle. We picked a selection of actors but then broke it down to a Male and Female. The female we chose conveniently had a past career in acting because she completed her Drama GCSE to a grade B, which was very useful. We took some test shots and took Recce photos of the location we filmed at, which have been posted on my blog. We brainstormed many ideas for the plot and props for the film. We created a shooting script and script for the characters. Character profiles were also created for further background on the characters.

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

My opening sequence followed the forms and conventions of real opening sequences. For our opening sequence, we had an establishing shot of a church, which indicates that Geoff had killed Alice. In class, we looked at different camera shots, angles and movements. Some of the camera shots we looked at were extreme close up, close up, Big close up, medium close up, over the shoulder and establishing shot. Camera angles are low angle, high angle and canted angle. Camera movements include panning, tracking, crane shot, stedi-cam, zoom, crab and tilt. We also looked at sound, where we talked about diegetic sound, which is spoken dialogue that appear, are shown in the film. None diegetic sound is the opposite, such as sounds that are background music, voice-over or other sounds. A sound bridge is the use of the same sound to provide a smooth transition and continuity between shots.
We used the film ‘Hit and Run’ as inspiration, where a woman is drunk on her way home from a party when she accidently runs over a man and runs away. A series of weird things start to happen to her. In our film, Geoff Porter runs over Alice Freener and leaves her for dead, which results in her haunting him.
We followed the codes and conventions of a real thriller by having the setting in a church and a castle, as this creates a scary feel. The colours we used for the makeup were black, white and red and were used throughout the film to conform to the conventions of a typical thriller. The mood of the film throughout was eery and dark, which is typically used. The lighting was dark throughout the film which we edited on iMovie to appear darker, and used Dream effect when Geoff was having a flash back. After researching many thrillers, this was the typical conventions used.

We learnt about the language of film and television. In the narrative, the storyline usually unfolds through characters and the central character is the protagonist. At the start of the film, Alice is the protagonist where she is run over by Geoff, however further along the film Geoff becomes the protagonist because he is being haunted. Stylistic elements of film include the narrative, sound, editing and camera angles/movement. Narrative also unfolds through technique, these include; cinematography, mise en scene, sound and editing. Our narrative did not have any dialogue so we had to make sure our shots were clear and easy to see what was going on.  On our blogs, we created a continuity piece. Some of the features of continuity editing include shot reverse shot, eye line match and match on action.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

A social group has been defined as two or more people/animals who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity. A society can be viewed as a large group, though most social groups are smaller. A media social group is a group of people who share the same interests, for example having the same favorite film genre or similar tastes in film/TV programmes.

In our film, the two characters that featured were teenagers. Mobile phones were symbolic in the film because when the male character was driving, he was using his mobile phone when he hit the schoolgirl. However, she was also using her mobile so she didn’t have her full attention on the road.

Another part of the film where mobiles were featured was when Geoff was trying to call someone on his phone, but he was shaking so much he dropped it and ran off. I think it was a good idea to include mobiles in the film because it is modern technology and it is showing what actually is happening in real life. The road safety adverts ‘THINK’ was inspiration for us because some elements of our film were in the adverts, for example the advert where the man runs over the little boy and he haunts him wherever he goes, even when he’s in work. A video of this can be found on the THINK website; think.direct.gov.uk.
Alice Freener, the female in the film, is always alone in the shots. This makes her look vulnerable and the victim. However, even though at the beginning of the film she is seen as the victim, as the film goes on, Geoff becomes the victim when she haunts him. This follows Barthes theory because it creates mysteries as the film goes on. Geoff is a typical young male. He has a job, he smokes, wears hoodies and has a 'swagger' about him. Alice is a typical female. She has long brown hair and wears girly makeup and feminine clothes e.g. school skirt and blouse. As the film goes on, Alice becomes a powerful female character as she is the one dominating Geoff's life.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Traditionally, the more common forms for the industries within the media have been TV and radio broadcasting, the film and recorded music industries, and the printed press (newspaper and book publishing). Connected to these areas is the advertising industry, which cuts across all media channels. In recent times, the Internet has provided a further form of a range of media content — from text to graphical and audiovisual content — can be distributed.
Our film could be advertised through many ways including horror magazines and online sites. The film could be promoted using TV guides, magazine spreads and newspaper interviews from the characters that feature in the film. Another form could be real life stories – a case study of something that could of happened in real life which is similar to the storyline in ‘Fatal Mistake’. There could also be hit and run stories in the local newspaper where the film got filmed. The Odeon website could advertise the premiere of the film and it could show the trailer, ratings and the plot.

I think our film is unique because it is not your typical ‘boy stalking girl’ storyline. The editing and camera work is too a high standard so it looks professional. The quality is not high definition like your usual blockbuster films but it is simply down to not having the professional equipment, however we made the best out of the circumstances and the end result is very promising.

Seeing as our film is low budget and not very professional, our film would most likely go straight to the film channels such as Sky films. These could also be premiered, so with a lot of advertising, a big ‘hype’ could be created for the film. We will be putting our film onto You Tube which should attract a bigger audience. We will see this progress by the amount of video views and the viewer’s comments.

I researched the internet to have a look at what companies may distribute my film for a low budget. I researched this because I wanted to see how much money it would be to distribute my film with a low budget company, compared with a high budget such as Dream Works or Universal. 
I came across the company Camberwell Productions. Within the hire rate you get; an air-conditioned, soundproof studio, pre-set lighting set up with a selection of gels, room for make-up, wardrobe and hospitality, kitchen, toilets, changing room and ample parking. They also have pc based non-linear editing suites available for hire at £80 per day, a lightweight track and dolly for £15 and an in-house camera hire for £50 per day. This would be most suitable for our film distribution because we are on a low budget.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We asked a number of people, of different ages, ranging from children to teenagers to elders. The younger generation preferred animated films. This may be because the storyline is simpler and the imagery is prettier. Women generally preferred romantic comedies and the men preferred comedies and horrors. We chose the age range to be 15+ because if it was an 18+, younger teenagers will not be able to view it. We have chosen not to make the age limit any younger because the film is about man running over a girl, which is then followed by him being haunted. This may be too frightened for younger viewers and we wouldn’t want to have a bad name but against our film.
The majority of horror films in the cinema are rated 15+. However, some of these are rated twelve. There is a lot of violence in horrors so they have to think of a suitable age limit. I don’t think our film is suitable to be labelled a PG (Parental Guidance) because our film contains violence and may include swearing. The haunting of the ghost may be too much to handle for the younger generation. I looked on the British Board of Film Classification and the official definition of PG is "Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ‘PG’ film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.' Taking this on board, it would be appropriate for our film to be classed as a PG.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We picked suitable music that fits into the genre of our film. It has a scary feel and the music builds up suspense to when Alice is sitting on the bridge looking scary with ghastly make up. Siobhan and I shortlisted a number of tracks and we broke it down to 2. We faded the 2 tracks together and this worked well.

By creating a horror/thriller film, this attracts a wide range of audience. We chose a teenage cast because this will attract the adolescent age. We used teenage themes throughout such as mobile phones, cars, driving dangerously, school, make up, hoodies etc. Alice wearing a school uniform particularly relates to the teenagers. 
We chose to film the car accident scene up the common where there will not be many people. There is a narrow road surrounding by woods. This creates a scary and lonely feel and makes Alice look vulnerable. At the point in the film, she is seen as the protagonist. 
Jordan created the logo design. The title was 'Reel Film Productions'. This was a very clever idea because an image of a film reel was later added. 

We asked a few members of the class to review our video. 


Here is a video of the music we used. In the actual opening sequence, we merged them together.

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

During the project, I have learnt how to use iMovie, blogger.com, PhotoBooth, YouTube and a video camera.
Where the job roles are concerned, I did all the camera filming and half of the editing. The camera we used was a Sony handicam. I found this easy to use and it worked well. Siobhan helped with the editing and was named the Director. Stephen created the storyboard and Jordan made the logo. I think the makeup used on Alice was very successful because she had pale skin and red eyes, which made her look dead. She had blood on her clothes which shows she had been hit by a car. Siobhan and I chose the music for the film and we think it goes together really well. For the music, we added copyright free via importing the music from a disc to iTunes and then iMovie.

We used iMovie to edit our opening sequence.  We used a dream effect to create to make it look like Geoff was having a flashback. In my opinion, this was successful and it actually looked like he was dreaming and imagining what had happened. We were able to remove the unwanted background noise, which is a benefit from using iMovie. Titles were also added when the actor/actress appeared on the screen and the director, editor, camera person and graphics were added later.
We linked the scenes together by cutting and putting them in an order that makes sense. We recorded a range of video clips which we had to select the best from. We cut the clips very carefully to it makes it seem like one scene ends and the other starts immediately. This shows the audience that the action is taking place in a normal time sequence. We altered the clip where Geoff gets out of the car and changed it to slow motion. This creates anticipation and it reminisces over what had just happened. When Alice is walking in front of the car, the sound track in the background was slow, creepy and creates a supernatural atmosphere. 

When Geoff is sitting on the bench, there are several flashbacks of the car crash. These flashbacks were edited to a light dreamy effect. This makes the audience feel like they’re in his mind. The car crash takes place in the day whilst the church and castle scene takes place in the night. We chose to film in the night because it has a scarier effect than being haunted in the day.

To show our research and planning, we had to set up our own personal blog on www.blogger.com. The site was straight forward and easy to use. The blog was used to put all our ideas on writing and helped us develop them. It allowed our teacher to monitor our work and help us when necessary. I researched other films and did an analysis on the opening to ‘The Secret Window’. We looked at these films and it inspired us with our own film. We regularly updated our blog with posts about what we had researched and what we had done in the media lessons. I also updated progress on the filming sessions. The blog allowed me and the rest of the group to monitor each others blogs. It helped me to see what I needed to improve on. We used PhotoBooth to record a audience response for the other group in our class which was later posted on www.blogger.com. 

Having a tripod was a huge benefit for our group. It meant our shots would be steady and accurate. However, we did find that using a tripod would affect our ability to move around. In some shots, the tripod wasn’t used because we wanted a hand-held effect. This makes it look like you are actually in the peoples eyes. This is called a POV (point of view) shot. This type of shot was used when Alice was walking up behind Geoff in the castle scene.

When we were filming our opening sequence, we found that lighting was a big problem, as we were filming in the night. At the church, this was all fine because there was a street lamp; however in the castle it was pitch black. We overcome this problem by coming back the next day at an earlier time. We then uploaded the footage to iMovie and used the effect ‘Day into Night’ which changed the lighting to make it look like it was the night instead of the day. We were very grateful for this effect because without it, we would have had great difficulty to film in the dark. 

For the last shot, we had a close up of the rose that was one of the flowers that Geoff had previously had in hands when he was sitting on the bench. The title "Fatal Mistake" shows connotations because Fatal is written in red and the roses are red. This represents blood that is shown on Alice's School blouse.

Mobile phones were used frequently in the film so it would attract the teenage audience. They can then relate to the reality of their own life. 

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

Throughout the project, we learnt how to do continuity editing. This was our first piece of filming we produced and as we are amateurs, this was quite successful because it followed a simple storyline. Continuity errors such as change of hair colour can ruin the illusion of realism. This happened in our film as Alice (real name Sophie) started off with blonde hair but a few weeks into the project she had dyed it brown. This didn’t affect us much because the scene we had filmed was in the dark and you couldn’t tell the difference. Our continuity sequence had to be simple, with no transitions or music and consisted of only cut edits. It had to be reasonably short. In our original continuity, we made the storyline and editing too complicated and more than what was expected, so we re-filmed everything. We made sure every time we filmed a clip, everything was in the same positioning e.g. the opening/closing of the door and the amount of books. We used an over the shoulder shot in one of the clips which emphasised what was happening and what characters were in the frame.
The main differences between the preliminary task and the main task was that in the continuity piece, the camera shots and editing was very basic. The storyline was very basic because this was our first task and we were testing out the camera and mac software. Our continuity piece worked well because it used all the codes and conventions. Whilst producing the continuity piece, we gained skills on MovieMaker and how to work the camera correctly. This was an advantage to us because it was then easier to film and edit the main task.
We also learnt that not everything was going to go smoothly in the filming of our opening sequence. For example, our film was filmed outside which meant weather conditions were going to affect us. We had to postpone some of our scheduled filming days because of the rain. Another example is that one of our group members, Jordan did not turn up to any of the filming sessions. This didn’t affect us greatly because he didn’t pay a big part in the creation of our film.

As for teamwork, some of the group put more effort into the film than others. However, we did not let this affect us because we wanted to make a high quality film! I think we made all the deadlines because we were very positive about making this film.  The planning of the filming didn't go very smooth because of adverse weather conditions and the lighting. The storyboard was creating in time for most of the filming but this did not affect us greatly because we had created a camera planning sheet. As for the music, this did generate a few problems for example not being able to exchange the music onto our film using iTunes, because it was blocked. Following this problem, we soon solved it and the music was smoothly placed onto the film ready for clipping.
By using and following all the codes and conventions of a thriller/horror, we produced a successful film that we hope the audience will enjoy. We had a unique plot line which was different to all the other media students that have used in the past. In the future, we would probably think more about the weather conditions affecting our filming and how to film a more successful car scene. However, overall I think our film was a great success and we are all very proud of it!

Audience Response

We asked a few members of the class to assess our film. This is the video they produced.

Audience Response

After creating a opening sequence, we asked a small audience of the class to view our film. this is the comments they came up with;

Use of Camera

They liked the pan in the beginning of the film by the way it was panning from the church gates to Geoff sitting on the bench. However, a few of them commented that it was confusing that the establishing shot was of the church and then it goes to the castle. It made sense to us because the church is right next to the castle but they were not aware of this. Another thing someone said was they liked the close up and extreme close ups to show the expressions on the characters faces. One thing that was mentioned was that the camera was not help steady enough when panning across. This was because the floor the camera stand was on was wonky. There was a wide variety of shots.

Mise-en-scene

A few people liked the setting because it was spooky and fitted the purpose. The lighting was good as it was dark yet you could still see what was being filmed. They liked the make-up on the actress because it showed the extent of the accident and gave it a haunted feel. The flowers shown that he is sorry for what he has done. The blood and the petal of the flowers added effect. The females costume adds effect as a dead school girl. Phones were a big feature in our film and someone picked up on this and said that phones are used a lot, so there was up to date modern technology. No improvements were suggested for this section.

Editing for Meaning

The audience seemed to like the editing, particularly the flashbacks because they were clear to see and understand because of the colour adjustments made. They also liked where the clip was slowed down where Geoff gets out of the car because it adds atmosphere. However, a comment that was made for improvements where that they was not aware that the person that was driving was on the phone until someone said. They said it didn't look like the car was moving when they were texting. Apart from the run over scene, every shot is well done when there is cut editing to another shot. The lighting emphasises the past. An improvement could be the shot changes as if it has cut a bit out when she is getting run over. 

Use of shot transitions, captions and other effects

These worked well between the crash and the haunting, making the flashback more clear. The flashback effect was good and worked well with the lighting. Someone said the fades were good from the victim just been run over top the victim and the car driver sat on the bench - makes it easy to understand that there has been a flash back.

Use of Sound: Ambient sounds, dialogue, music

The use of two different tracks at the beginning of the film worked well, according to a number of the audience. The soundtrack added to the feel of the film. They commented that there was no speech. An improvement that was suggested was to fade the music in and out more. Diegetic sound worked well with the non-diegetic sound track, e.g. the car skidding and the footsteps running. The use of music went well with each shot, added effect. The soundtrack was well edited together and went well. It added effect to each shot and emphasised the story. Some speech could have been added or the sound of the car radio before the victim gets run over.

Use of Titles

According to a member of the audience, the main title wasn't really big enough because it looks like the same as the subtitles. We took this advice on board and increased the size of the main title. We did this because they didnt notice the title until the second time they watched it. The 2 colours for the title were liked because they stood out. Some improvements were that the transition of the titles were too fast. The title goes well with the film because it proves to the audience it was accidental and makes them sympathise Geoff. The title at the end with the rose adds great effect. Apparently, the title was too bold for a horror and that it looks more for a comedy, only the red and white colours give us an idea of horror.

Finished!

We have finally finished our opening sequence to the thriller we made, called Fatal Mistake. The length of the sequence is 2:33, slightly over by 3 seconds but we had to cut a lot of the scenes out to make sure it fitted the correct time period. Overall, I am very happy of the outcome of the film!