Pitch!

I prepared a script for our pitch to ensure that we all had enough to say and so we could deliver our ideas in the most effective way. The pitch went really well. We talked about all the fundamental aspects of film and really tried our best to sell the film. Miss Ledwidge liked our ideas but said we needed to work on our storyboard-making it more detailed, as though it was explaining and presenting all the details of our film. Because we realised that drawing around 60 frames was impractical, we decided to produce a photographic storyboard on a programme called celtx... where you upload pictures you have taken- inserting them in the correct places, and writing down the descriptions. The programme automatically formats the storyboard, making it easier for us to produce. We took the photos of ourselves, each posing as one of the characters. It only took us around 30 minutes to take the photos, which was quicker than drawing them. We also formatted our script in Celtx, which makes it look more professional and easier to read etc.

We plan to start filming next Friday, where we will set up in a location, such as a back garden and try and shoot the sequence in one go.

Friday 4th March 2010

Today, me, Charlotte and Sophie have been preparing our pitch to present either today and if we run out of time, on Tuesday to Miss Ledwidge. We stuck two massive pieces of sugar paper together to make a large poster to stick up on the wall. We also have started a powerpoint presentation to bulletpoint the basics, making it easier for the audience to read and understand. In our pitch, we will include a snipet of our script, a part of our storyboard, a whole film synopsis and the opening synopsis, the character, the camera shots we are aiming to use and why and also fully describe our opening idea. As a group in the previous lessons, we decided on the aim of the opening and the story following. The name of our film is "The Ouija Board", because our film consists of a group of teen, camping in a empty field at night, near a derelict church graveyard (which they later explore and is where the killings take place) and participating a game on a ouija board, which then results i the main female character "Katie" becoming possesed, proceeding in the attempt to kill her friends in the order they touched the board, which is shown at the opening, but only becomes aparent when "Ben" realises this. Only one of the characters live, however there is a twist to the story. At the moment, we are finalising our pitch and writing a script to ensure we have the right enthusiasm to sell the film...

This is the script i wrote to help us through the presentation...

Film Pitch Presentation Script

Xenia:

The genre of film we have studied, analysed in detail and we are going to use for our film is horror. We have decided to subcategorize with the genre of slasher, possession horror. This is because we found that it was one of the most commonly watched and enjoyed subgenre of horror from the 60 questionnaires we distributed.

Sophie:

We decided to go with the horror genre because not only did we each individually enjoy the genre and have many interesting ideas surrounding it, but we also found from our questionnaires that it was one of the most popular genres, and collectively would appeal to a wide target demographic.

Charlotte:

Because we chose the horror genre, the age certificate of our film would have to be either 15 or 18 depending on the contents such as the violence and gore. However, studying our questionnaire results, we found that the genre was also popular with 15 years and above, so therefore it would be ideal to follow the British Board of Film Classification guidelines to ensure a rating of 15 to get more of a profit at the box office and a wider range of audience, such as a target demographic of 15 to 35.

Elysia:

The synopsis of our film is…a group of four teenage friends, two boys and two girls, around the ages of 17/18 decide to go camping in a derelict field near an old empty church with a run down graveyard. They set up a tent in a field at dusk and someone brings an Ouija board and they all decide to play it. They are quite rebellious, so they are smoking and drinking whilst playing the game in the tent.

Xenia:
The game scares the group as it begins to move spontaneously revealing messages to the individuals. The board threatens the main girl (Katie) and out of anger she finishes the game. After the game the teens decide to explore the near by graveyard…which is where the story begins. In the graveyard the group split off into pairs, the first player (Katie) becomes possessed after witnessing a dark character by herself near the church.

Sophie:

She attempts to kill the others in order that they each took turns in playing the game one by one, luring them in because they think she’s normal and then kills them using violence and uses many objects such as her abnormal strength from the spirit that took over her and tools such as blades. It becomes an escape mission for the characters; however, as they are far from civilisation and it is night, they struggle to escape. She eventually kills the others apart from (Rachel) who was the last person to take her turn in the game because of her apprehension of playing the game. In the end, Rachel kills Katie. Rachel then collapses in the woodland area from exhaustion next to the body of Katie.

Charlotte:

In the morning, the police find the only survivor, Rachel in the woods exhausted and completely traumatized. Rachel tries to describe her terrifying experiences of the deadly trip- to which she remembers the body of Katie to use for evidence of the story. However, the body is gone and the police fail to believe her story. They find the other bodies and Katie’s body in the church… They search the tent and see the drugs and alcohol- yet no Ouija board. The police start to question if Rachel committed the murders herself, by the influence of alcohol and drugs as if it were a hallucination gone wrong. Rachel is then painfully sectioned in a psychiatric hospital.

Elysia:

The film consists of plot twists and engages the audience throughout with edgy narrative.

The name of our film is completely relevant to the narrative. We decided to call it… “The Ouija Board” as the film is primarily about the Ouija board and the affect it has on the group of rebellious teens. Ouija boards, also known as “talking boards” are supposedly a way of communicating with the dead.

Xenia:

There are people who believe they can be harmful. Some practitioners claim to have had bad experiences related to the use of talking boards by being haunted by "demons," seeing apparitions of spirits, and hearing voices after using them. A few paranormal researchers, such as John Zaffis, claim that the majority of the worst cases of so-called demon harassment and possession are caused by the use of Ouija board, which is why we decided that the idea of the board would link perfectly with our subgenre of possession because of the amount of amnionicity surrounding them- which makes it a scary subject.

Sophie:

The locations that we plan to film at for the opening of our film are…

a field area, to set up the tent for the teenagers with surrounding trees. We have decided to use an isolated area as we found that it was most popular from the results of our questionnaire and is most suitable for our chosen genre. Another setting is a graveyard or forest area, these were also the most poplar locations to create an appropriate enigma to the narrative and atmosphere.

Charlotte:
Due to the films we have studied such as “my bloody valentine and cabin fever,” these films influenced our possible three locations as they portray a sense of danger and the unknown because of the disconnection from civilisation. We intend on filming our opening at dusk then during editing changing the lighting, which is commonly used in horror films.

Elysia:

The opening sequence of our film is going to consist of the opening credits and fading into a aerial shot of the ouiji board in the tent with the teenager surrounding it. This will be an establishing shot. The character are then going to smoke and drink, which is a common convention of a horror movie, as they normally portray rebellious teenagers being the victims as they are doing wrong. The character will then debate on whether to play the game or not…

Xenia:

They eventually play the game with Rachel the meeker girl being persuaded into it. One by one the teenagers stack their hands on the board waiting to play the game. The first time it goes wrong but they persist and try again. We will then have close ups of all the hands in the middle of the board and the board spelling out a message to the group. The message being “chosen”. The more dominant female, Katie will then refuse to play and encourage the group to go for a walk.

Sophie:

This will be our opening. It establishes the characters and sets them up for danger as they are in the middle of nowhere at night- which is always a common convention of the genre as it creates enigma and an edge. The most common camera shot we will use are close-ups as they are commonly used in horror films to portray tension. We will mainly use close-ups whilst the characters are playing the game and we will have close-ups of their hands moving across the board and also their facial expressions whilst playing the game.

Charlotte:

We will also use medium shots to establish the characters, showing their costumes and gestures, helping the audience to recognise their features and personalities. This is a key aspect as the audience prefer to connect or be understanding of at least one of the characters, so they can follow them through the film with the emotions. Mainly medium shots will be used at the beginning to establish the characters and to see them smoking and drinking and then close-ups will be used when the narrative becomes more intense when they are playing the game.

Elysia:

The editing will be quick paced and straight cuts will be used throughout the beginning sequence, apart from when the credits fade into the Ouija board at the very beginning to create an atmosphere. Straight cuts are common to the horror genre as it keeps the tension high and the pace fast. This is essential to our film.

Xenia:

The lighting is the most essential thing for our opening sequence. As it will be dusk and we plan to film in the dark, we will prepare the light in the tent carefully. The lighting will be quite white and harsh and come from the side or underneath the characters. We found this common in the other horror films we analysed as it creates an eerie feel to the film, creating shadows and shapes, making the audience feel on edge and it is immediately recognisable as a horror. We will carefully select the correct lighting equipment for our opening, such as a camping lamp.

Sophie:

The sound effects and music we have chosen to go with our opening whilst the credits are showing is quite edgy and instantly connotes horror, with the right instruments, with the correct pitch and tempo. We will use a soundtrack with the opening credits. However, when the characters are talking, we will use sound effects of nature at night, such as a cricket or a owl hooting and occasionally add subtle instruments when the tension is building in the narrative- such as when the characters are playing the board.

Charlotte:

We chose to use this type of music because we discovered that sometimes it is better to create tension with no music, just subtle sound effects or subtle, quiet music because it portrays the location and silence can be described as scary because of the unknown. We will select the music carefully to ensure it creates the best effect for the film and leaves the audience constantly on edge.

Our main characters are called Katie, Rachel, Ben and Mat. They are visibly around the ages of 17 to 18.

Elysia:

The main female character, Katie has the characteristics of a preppy teenage girl, who is quite popular and is the dominant character of the group. She is vain and is constantly looking in the mirror and on her phone. She is blonde and pretty, has a good body and wears quite revealing clothes of her body such as a skirt and a low cut top, to accentuate her assets. Perhaps this spurs on her popularity. This type of character is common in horror films. They are usually the ones who are the first victim because of their bitchy mannerisms.

Xenia:

Rachel on the other hand is very sweet and has a mild character. She is the sensible one and is Katie’s best friend. Rachel is naturally pretty and does not wear visible make up, yet she still cares about her appearance. Rachel will wear less revealing clothes than Katie. She will be wearing simply jeans and a nice floral top. Rachel is brunette with long hair and is moderately popular in the group. She is the nicest character and goes through most of the trauma by eventually killing the killer. We found that normal down-to-earth characters are more likely to survive in horror films.

Sophie:

Matt is a teenage boy, who is the boyfriend of Katie. He is also very outspoken and will be wearing more sports clothes because he is a “jock” type character. Matt is the dominant male and is best friends with the second male Ben. Matt and Katie have a good relationship, as they are both strong characters.

Charlotte:

Ben is a nicer male. He is the boyfriend of Rachel. They are suited because they have similar personalities and he is a kind person. This is shown through his dialogue, although he can become under the influence by Matt. Matt will wear casual nice clothes, such as jeans, hoody and a jacket.

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coursework

The presentation about the summary of results for Ledders went well, i think. It took us a long time to do the presentation. As son as i find out how to upload it, i shall (with the others). At the moment we are studying film production companies. my group got "British Film production companies" and we presented the information that we found to the class. We focused on Pinewood studios- which is the studios we are going to base our assessment on.

Here are some of the slides we produced and presented...

From this research we learnt a lot of information on the British film industry and the studios. This helped us to understand all the fundamental aspects of the British film industry.

We were then told to choose a film company, to which we chose Pinewood Studios. We are creating a booklet containing the information surrounding the studios at the moment.

Mediaaa!

i finished the 8 essays for the 28/01/10... i was so proud of myself, but i'm sure there will be a lot of adjusting to do! Now im working on analysis of results for a presentation that we are showing to Ledders tomorrow. This presentation will include a collaboration of our ideas and observations. I shall print screen and try and put it on my blog tomorrow once its complete. Most of our results are similar, as we watch similar type films. I did ...My Bloody Valentine, Creep, The Hills Have Eyes 2, The Amityville Horror, The Sixth Sense, Final Destination 3, Drag Me to Hell, Cabin Fever. They all had similar narrative structures... although i did find a big difference between high budget horror/thrillers such as The Amityville Horror and The Sixth Sense, to the lower costing English produced horror/thriller, Creep. Yet, i thought Creep was scary and achieved just as much suspence as the others, because of its raw, realistic qualities. I hope we will do well in this presentation tomorrow!

5 Opening film textual analysis's

I have just finished all five of my texual analysis's. I think they are good :) Just 3 whole movie analysis's now... in the space of 2 days! HELP! The five textual analysis openings i chose to do were...

1) The Amityville Horror (2005)

2)Final Destination 3 (2006)

3)Drag Me to Hell (2009)

4)The Sixth Sense (1999)

5)The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007)

This is a clip of opening scene of The Amityville Horror...

This clip is the opening scene from Final Destination 3...

Here are some of the analytical notes i made of the these two openings concerning the lighting...

The Amityville Horror...

The lighting in the opening of the film is extremely dark. The main source of light are from the television and the lightning flashes. Whilst the opening scene comes to a climax, when George kills everyone upstairs, the screen becomes almost totally black and the audience can only see the image when a flash of light (from the lightning storm) lights the whole house. This makes it extremely intense because the audience do not know what George is doing when the screen is completely dark, and the flashes of light are quite intense, which builds up pace and creates an enormous amount of enigma. Also the storm brewing outside the house also adds to intensity as it portrays a sense of uneasiness, danger and anger.

Final Destination 3...

The lighting used in the opening of the film is quite dark because it is set at night because night connotes danger and the unknown and therefore ideal for a horror/thriller film. The main sources of light are the smaller bulb lights on the fairground rides. The main colour of light is a deep red, which makes the film feel more eerie and red connotes danger and death, and used for effect, will create enigma and suspense to the audience.

3 Horror Film Analysis'...

These are the 3 whole horror films i analysed...

1)Cabin ever (2002)

2)Creep (2004)

3)My Bloody Valentine (2009)

This is the trailer for Creep...

This is the trailer for Cabin Fever...

This is the trailer for My Bloody Valentine...

Our Questionaire...

This was our questionnaire :)...


Horror/Thriller Research Questionnaire

This questionnaire is about your views and opinions on Horror/Thriller films…

1) Gender:[ ] Male[ ] Female

2) Age:
[ ] 12-15
[ ] 16-17
[ ] 18-21
[ ] 22-26
[ ] 27-35
[ ] 35-40
[ ] 41-50
[ ] 50+

3) Occupation?
[ ] Student
[ ] Employed
[ ] Unemployed
[ ] Retired
[ ] Other, if so, please state- ________________________________________________


4) State 2 hobbies and interests of your choice?
1.
2.

5) Do you like watching Horror/Thriller films?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

6) Name 2 of your favourite Horror/Thriller films?
1.
2.

7) Is there anything you would find inappropriate in the opening of a Horror film?
Please state what you like about the opening of Horror/Thriller films and what you would expect to see in one?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

8) How often do you watch Horror films?
[ ] Not at all
[ ] Sometimes
[ ] Quite Frequently
[ ] A lot

9) What types of films do you prefer to watch? (tick 2)
[ ] Action
[ ] Fantasy
[ ] Romance
[ ] Sci-Fi
[ ] History
[ ] Thriller
[ ] War
[ ] Comedy

10) What is your preferred sub genre of Horror films? (tick 1)
[ ] Comedy Horror
[ ] Disaster Horror
[ ] Gory Horror
[ ] Thriller Horror
[ ] Light hearted Horror
[ ] Vampire Horror

11) What elements do you think are of up most importance to create tension and suspense in a Horror film? (tick the appropriate ones)
[ ] Sound track
[ ] Settings
[ ] Plot twists
[ ] Language
[ ] Props
[ ] Characters
[ ] Murders

12) Where do you think would be the best location to film a Horror film?
____________________________________________________________

13) What type of characters would you expect to see in a Horror
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

14) What emotions would you like to feel whilst watching in the opening of a Horror/Thriller film? (tick the appropriate boxes)
[ ] Enigma
[ ] Tension
[ ] Anger
[ ] Scared
[ ] Happy
[ ] No emotion

15) What do you expect to see in the opening of a Horror/Thriller film?
________________________________________________


Thankyou for your time!

Friday 22nd Jan with Mr Cramb!

Today i spent over three hours creating the presetation of anaylsis of our results to show to the class in last period. The powepoint contained every question, a graph and an analysis. I took a long time, but it was definatly worth it! We presented it to the class, and although nobody was listening except sir, we were told we did very well :D! We watched other group presentations and found that information from the same genre was similar, but our presentation was more in detail, giving us the advantage. We also took notes from other groups information as we thought it would be helpful and beneficial.I will try and upload the powerpoint onto my blog! The results from our questionaire are very helpful and show alot of potential to show us who exactly our target demographic is... As we only distributed 23 questionaires, we are yet to add more. We are aiming to get results from 50-100 to get accurate information. We will then ajust the presentation, so we have our results clearly displayed for us and others to analyse...
Today i will try my best to get as many analysis' done as the deadline is for Thursday and today is Sunday! I will also have to start collection more information for my portfolio! Here are a couple of slides we created and used from our analysis of results presentation...

21/01/10 media lesson with cramb!

Today we sorted out our results in lesson. It took a while, but the results are really helpfull. We also started making our presentation on the analysis of the results for tomorrow...

Preparing for deadlines...

Me and charl printed off around 30-35 questionaires and handed them out today ready for our next deadline. People's responses have been quite positive! We'll just have to summarise and analyse the results when we have all the questionaires filled in!

Welcome

Thank you for inviting me. Welcome to blogging and your foundation portfolio. Make sure you maintain your blog a couple of times a week as this should be a reflective working document.

Welcome

Thank you for inviting me. Welcome to blogging and your foundation portfolio. Make sure you maintain your blog a couple of times a week as this should be a reflective working document.

Thursday's media lesson with Cramb! Our questionaires...

I didn’t know how to invite people yesterday so I finally got help in today’s lesson! :) Well today, we sorted out our blogs and showed our questionnaires that we created last lesson to Mr Cramb who did say (I quote) “Yours is the most impressive one yet” !! Well we did try hard! ;)! The questions that we generated were all okay to use, however we had to adjust some of them, like the age question and the boxes available to tick with the age boundaries. Also in our questionnaire we generalized the questions, such as “Is there anything you would find inappropriate in a horror/thriller film?” whereas it should have been “In the opening of a horror film”… because that is what we are aiming to create and finding the information on. We also needed to add “Vampire Horror” as a subcategory (as Mr. Cramb suggested) because of the new craze of Twilight and New Moon. I was shocked to discover that the twilight films would come under the category of horror! We have different types of questions, allowing us to generate both quantitative and qualitative data!
I took the questionnaire off Sophie’s area and put it on my memory stick, allowing me to make the adjustments now and dispatching the questionnaires on the weekend to get our results by Tuesday in Miss Ledwidge’s lesson! I am defiantly going to do a textual analysis of a film opening tonight! I need to start now if we need 5 done by the 28th! STRESSFULL! ... but interesting :)

Thursday, 14th Jan 2010, Media Lesson

Today in A-Level Media Studies, we were told about our coursework for the course. We had to get into groups of four and at the end of the process, produce a two minute film opening. We decided our group would be me, Sophie, Charlotte and Ellie, because we are close friends which means it will be easier to access each other out of school time, work together and be comfortable in the group :).We were given a booklet, containing deadlines and work to complete towards our final product. Our first task (FOR TOMORROW!!..tight deadlines!) was to produce a mind map of all the things we knew about the genre of film opening we were going to attempt to make… but first we had to decide on a genre! It didn’t take us long to realise that horror/thriller was the genre that most appealed to us all and the genre that we all felt we could be the most creative with. We then went and gate crashed a year 11 media class in room 29 (the room the nicked off us) to get some flip chart paper and pens! They weren’t very impressed ;)!
After getting the equipment we made a brain-storm of all the relevant and crucial information we all knew on the horror and thriller genre, dividing the page into such subcategorize as, settings, stock characters, props, connotations, listing all the horrors we know and appealed to us etc. We filled the whole page as between us we must have seen a million horror films! After that we filled in a sheet about questionnaires, which was research into the type of data available to get from questionnaires, such as quantitative data and qualitative date. After that we decided to start drafting the questions we were going to put in our questionnaire to get the relevant information we needed and to discover who are target demographic was. We put in basic information like gender, age, occupation etc. and also questions about horror films such as; if they enjoyed them, what subcategory of horror appeals to them most, why they enjoyed horror films, if they prefer the film if the can relate to the characters more etc. A target demographic is important because it will allow us to cater to our audiences and produce the best possible opening we can, using the right sort of camera shots, costume, characters, lighting, props and storyline.
After we completed the draft questions, we wrote them out on the computer, ready for Mr. Cramb to look at them tomorrow! Hopefully tomorrow we will find out whether our questionnaire is worthy enough to be distributed!!! We were also deciding as to which films we will try and do our FIVE textual analysis’s by, by the 28th of Jan! eeek! Hard work! We’ll see what happens tomorrow :) ….