Master Post: Evaluation Question Blogs

1) In what way does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

K:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/deconstruction-for-film-opening-in.html

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/practical-task-mise-en-scene.html

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/practical-killers-mask.html

L:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/actors-in-our-opening-scene.html

J:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/conventions-of-mystery-in-horror.html

 

2) How does your media product represent a particular social group?

K:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/gone-2012-deconstruction-gone-is.html

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/gender-as-target-audience.html

J:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/conform-of-female-victims.html

 

3) What kind of media institution might distribution your media product and why?

L:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/universal-pictures-deconstruction.html

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/production-company-deconstruction.html

K:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/my-production-company-sequence_2.html

 

5) How did you attract / address your audience?

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/gender-as-target-audience.html

L:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/age-of-target-audience-for-our-opening.html
J: http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/male-audience-for-horror.html

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

K:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/film-titles-typography.html

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/practical-typography.html

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/practical-sound-effects.html

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/sound-evaluation.html

L:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/editing-match-on-action.html

J:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/jakes-filming-evaluation.html

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

K:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/evaluation-of-editing-in-our.html

O:

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/planning-our-preliminary.html

http://olivialucykelsey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/storyboard-1st-draft.html

Continuity improvement

Continuity Improvement

We received feedback from an audience watching our video and discovered there was a break in continuity in a part of our opening scene.

 This took place as the victim escapes through the door and the killer turns around to find our where she's gone. After being made aware of it and re-watching it we could see the Killer turn around to see where the victim has run, the shot then changes to the killer running out of the door and then cuts back to the Killer turning around again. To preserve the importance of continuity we would have to cut it so the killer was already beginning to run after her in the second shot of him.

During editing I used the blade tool and deleted the beginning part of the second clip of the killer and started the second clip where he is already beginning to run after the victim who has escaped. This allowed continuity to flow smoothly and was accurate to real time making it much more realistic. 

Editing: Improvements on Title

Faceless Editing: Improvements on Title

Upon audience feedback after previewing our first draft of our video, our feedback suggested that the title of our piece whilst had fitting typography that fit with the gene was too dark to view on screen. Previously, when creating the text on Photoshop, I had made it with darker spots intentionally to try and fit in with the idea of a horror film including dark scenes and dark plots. However, I didn't take into account having difficulty seeing it.

We went back to the Faceless opening scene in Final Cut Pro and used the colouring tool to improve this. I moved up the brightness on brightness/contrast and used the brightness tool to make it lighter. This allowed us to see the text clearer. However moving the brightness up made the title loose contrast and the colour of the red blood in the title faded. This resulted in it looking less impactful.

To fix this I moved up the contrast to deepen the colours and darken the shadows of the title. This allowed it to still be bright as I kept the brightness of it as it was. Overall I am happy with how the title came out, as it fits with the genre and thanks to our audience feedback can now be seen clearly.

Faceless Editing: blinking effect

Faceless Editing: Blinking effect

On one of our shots, the victim of the opening scene is waking up on a POV shot with a hand-held camera and blurry focus. This was intentionally done to show the character's disorientation after being knocked out. To further show this we wanted to include a blinking effect to make it look like the character was only just waking up and to enhance the idea of a POV shot. We did this in the editing process in Final Cut Pro. 

I used the blade tool to cut the POV shot in half, where I wanted the blinking effect to appear. I then added in a blank black clip in between the two halved POV shots. The black blank clip would be the blinking. I had to use a cross fade transition and placed it over both sides of the black clip that linked to the POV shot. This made it seem like the victim was fading in and out of consciousness.

Overall, I think it came out well, as the effect's intentions of being a blinking effect is clear. The process of creating the blinking effect was simple and quick. After discovering how to do it I placed two more blinking effects in on the same POV shot. The impact of the effect was successful as it showed the character in a drowsy state and shows her to have been knocked out, this is helped by the diegetic sound of white noise in the background and makes the audience feel how the character is feeling. 

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography

Faceless Editing: Text/Typography:

When deciding what text we were going to use for the titles, we wanted it to suit the horror/slasher genre of our film. We wanted it too look rough and originally wanted a text that looked quickly hand-drawn. We began by looking at text that would have this effect. The first typography that we considered was 'Bradleyhand' typography. Whilst it gave the 'hand-written effect' we wanted it looked too 'teenager' and didn't fit the horror film genre.

The next text we looked at was 'chalkduster'. We considered this as a possible option as it had a rustic look and still looked hand-written. However, we decided to not use this one as whilst it had the effect we wanted, it didn't fit a slasher film

The final text we looked at was Octin Spraypaint at a scale size of 67.0. Whilst this typography didn't have the hand written effect we originally wanted, it was suitable for our genre but also looked like a type writing effect which gave it an aged feel which made it look rustic. We chose for the text to be white, as it stood out on the screen as a lot of our clips were dark. Capital letters were used to make it more dramatic.

To make it look like it was appearing in the scene, as if painted on the wall, we had to rotate the text to line up along the wall. In the picture below you can see the name 'Tom Hiddleston' has been turned to match up with the metal bar. We rotated it 3%.

For a more dramatic effect we wanted to make the text appear as if static was moving the text about on the screen. We looked on the effects options on Final Cut Pro and found a 'bad TV' effect where you can manipulate the text to look static. However, when we added it onto the text it caused the text to disappear. Instead we included a transition effect called 'feature' which made the letters appearing in a canon sequence.

 Overall, despite not achieving our original want for the typography I think what we created was a lot better than our beginning idea as it fit with the genre and was easy to read without looking like children's scribbles. 

Editing: Adding the production companies

Adding the production companies

I used a Youtube to MP4 download website to download the Blumhouse Productions logo video. Now that I have saved it, we can now put it into the beginning of our opening scene along with one of the production companies that we made ourselves.

We chose Blumhouse Productions because it is well knwon for producing horror films and we thought it would be best to use a conventional production company rather than one like Universal which is much more general and is more commonly used for higher grossing films.

For our own production companies, we decided as a group that Kelsey's is the best and most appropriate out of all of ours. So I also downloaded that as an MP4 file so that we could put it in after the Blumhouse logo.

I think that both of our choices for production companies are good and conform to the genre of horror and so match the genre of our opening scene.

Editing our Opening Scene: Match on Action

In our opening scene we needed to have some match on action, so we decided to put it in when ....

To edit it all together to make it into match on action, I put all of the clips in the right order and cut them so that everything was in the same place and it had continuity.

Faceless Editing: Colouring

Faceless Editing: Colouring

After showing the draft of our edited film opening to an audience we received feedback that the colouring in the garage was too bright and didn’t reflect a dark and sinister setting in which the killer’s lair should show. Whilst re-filming some parts, we experimented with lighting in order to create the effect we wanted. We first started off by turning all of the lights off and discovered it was too dark for the camera to see. Then we turned the lights on, there was no dimming them as they were either on or off. In the garage there was too lights, we decided it might be effective if we cover one of the lights up to make it darker. We covered it with black bin bags but despite it covering it up, the room was still too bright on the camera. Instead, it was suggested we manipulate the colouring in the editing process.

I used colour corrector to do this, having to select all the clips at once to colour all the clips all together to make the process quicker

I used a colour balance effect to manipulate the colouring from a yellow colour to more blue, to make it more sinister and dark.

In saturation, I put the saturation down half-way in order to make it look less bright, however I didn’t pull the saturation down all the way as this would have made it black and white instead, which is not the effect we were looking for.

The exposure allowed us to create a more darkening setting. I put this down as well, which pronounced the clip and made areas more blacker and darker, giving a small darkening around the edges, creating an eerie setting.

I had problems with one clip, as due to the lighting in the filming made the colour corrector appear differently on it to the others, making it not look naturalistic and as if we’d filmed it at two different points. In this clip, the image was more saturated than the others. To solve the problem I decreased saturation and increased exposure to make it more darker and fit in with the other clips of the opening.

Overall I’m happy with the colouring we’ve used as it is slightly blue and darker than the original and I achieved my aim of making it look like the garage is has a low lighting to create a scary atmosphere.

Practical: Typography

Typography: Faceless

An important part of an opening scene is the title, it's name, along with the typography as this can show what genre the film is and what the narrative is going to be. For my practical I decided to experiment on Photoshop to see what I could come up with.

Our title is Faceless, as our genre is Slasher/psychological with a narrative about a killer who wears a mask to hide their identity, therefore we thought the name faceless fitted this theme as it continues the suspense and mystery of who the killer is.

I started off putting my text in the center of the canvas, making it the focus point for an audience.

For the typography, I wanted something simple. I didn't want to use serif as our storyline doesn't follow a religious theme but I also wanted to put a few effects onto the text to show what genre it is part of as well. Before deciding, however, on a text, I colored the background layer, black to show it is a dark horror film.

I used century gothic text and bolded it as this is still quite simple and is thick enough to leave space to add effects (ie. a blood effect into it). I also decided on a deep red colour, symbolizing blood, linking with the slasher genre.

Afterwards, I used a erase 'grass' brush and erased over the text, swiping the eraser over the words to make it look like it had been scratched off, going over certain areas of the text more than others. Originally I was going to leave the text like this as I felt like it showed an overall creepy look and portrayed the genre of the opening, however, i decided to experiment more.

I looked at the different filters available and thought the wind option could create a good effect (filter--> stylized--> wind). It didn't make much of a difference after using it, however it did make the black erased areas more blurry, making it look more distorted.

I duplicated the text layer twice, coloring one black the other the same red as before and put it under the erased layer. The black used to keep the black erased effect in place whilst the under red layer, I blurred to make the outline of the text a more defined edge.

Following from this, I flattened all the layers together before duplicating it. Then, the top layer I colored black and white. This gave it a rough effect as if it was metal. I carried on by using the eraser tool and erasing the top layer on certain areas so that the red from the bottom layer could come through. This made the text look like metal with red blood stains splatted over it, giving it a mechanical horror feel, fitting in with the genre of slasher.

Finished product:

Overall the typography effect I used I think was effective in portraying the genre of slasher. however it doesn't show any correlation to our planned narrative story line or link in with the title 'faceless', perhaps I could add the image of a mask somewhere on the text to show it is a psychological as it will follow the story of the killer who wears a mask.