Question 7

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

Here is my Preliminary Task that I completed in a group at the start of the course, the simplicity of the video we made is of large contrast to the film opening we now have, and have worked hard to achieve. In the time of progression to reach a final product, I believe I have learnt a lot about the importance of preparation during the pre-production phase, and the organisation and patience within actual production. You simply cannot just pick up a camera and go...

Research

Due to the simplicity of the Prelim Task, there was no need to complete any research, specifically research into genre conventions, which in contrast, I spent hours doing before starting the production of our film opening. My research within the pre-production phase consisted of looking at existing texts and familiarising myself with the psychological thriller genre, and how other production companies/directors have gone about creating a film that follows the conventions of the genre. This includes aspects such as character type, location and mis-en-scene. I carried out this research by watching film openings from our film genre, analysing and commenting on the aspects I named above. I also did specific research into what were the traditional conventions of a psychological thriller - so that we could reflect these conventions within our film opening. It was vital that this research was completed in order to produce a product that would be accepted into, and successful within the genre. 

Here is a screenshot of the 5 blog posts that contain my Genre Research.

Planning and Time Management

For our Prelim task, all that was needed was a single sheet of planning, briefly noting the few shots that we needed to film, and who would be within them. However, for our film opening we knew that a lot more thought needed to go into producing pre-made Documents that would lead us through the production phase. This is due to the much larger amount of time we would be producing our film opening (over the course of around 3 weeks), as opposed to our Prelim that took the majority of 2 hours during lesson time.

After deciding from my Initial ideas what film opening I wanted to peruse, Harrison and I prepared and delivered a pitch of the idea. With a great response and a new member of the group, George, we created the following pre-production documents, to plan our film opening.

• Detailed Synopsis
• Storyboard
• Screenplay
• Shot list

I then decided to go a step further and create an Animatic, as the plot, timings and sound would be more or less reflected the final cut. The Animatic contained a voice over of me describing what would be happening and I think this really helped me to visualize what the final product would look like, and ultimately allowed me to come up with some creative shot ideas.



Casting

Unlike our Prelim task, where we simply used people amongst the group as our actors, a lot of thought went into who would star in our film opening. Our protagonist, Molly, was a no-brainer decision, with her being a close friend of mine, and living locally, we knew she would be readily available. We also wanted to ensure that our main character was of a good acting ability, and with Molly studying A-level Drama we were sure she would be up to standard! The role of Molly's Parents however was much more difficult to cast, we had to find two parents who would be willing to give up a couple of evenings to film - luckily Georgina and Nick volunteered. Before we filmed we made sure the actors were familiar with their lines, fortunately there wasn't too many to learn.

Props, Costumes, General Mis-en-Scene.

For our Prelim, we only needed the following things - which were all found within school.

• A stairway
• A free room
• Table with 2 chairs
• A piece of paper to hold.

There was also no need to change from our school attire.

However, this is completely different to our film opening, which we had to gather the following props, and move from place to place.

• Quiet street;
• 2 Cars - to imitate the crash, and film within
• Molly's Bedroom;
• Small items for cut away shots
• A suitcase, and clothes to pack
• Molly's first costume - Pyjamas
• Inside the train;
• Molly's second costume - Casual clothes.

Our General Mis-en-scene, related to our audience, and genre research. The costumes and Molly's Bedroom contained signifiers that represented Molly as a typical teenage Girl, attracting a young female audience, and also building an emphasis on the mental deterioration of Molly that is to come later in the Film. The dark, quiet streets used for the car crash reflected our genre research, following the convention of low light, and creation of a tense atmosphere.

Location Scouting and Test shots.

We knew we must pick locations that was going to help reflect the correct atmosphere for the film opening, as well as being accessible. We chose the street of the car crash, due to its short distance from Ilkley town centre, so it was both easy to access but much quitter street. There was also limited lighting that we thought would emphasise a tense atmosphere. Molly's bedroom was obviously the easiest to access, with no worry of disturbance during shoots - as it was in our main actresses' own Home. The Train station, and Train were the hardest locations to organise due to picking convenient train times, and then picking a station for Molly to exit the train that wasn't too far away, but also looked remote (lots of trees, less houses).

During our location vlog, we also did some test shots of the first scene using my car, that was not going to be used in the actual footage.

Rough Cuts and Audience Feedback

When creating our Prelim we simply has to shoot, and edit the clips together, and the feedback was commenting on if it had been correctly filmed and edited together - which we successfully achieved. However, for our film opening multiple Rough cuts were needed alongside both self/group analysis and audience feedback to successfully reach a Final Cut that both ourselves and our audience were happy with.

Rough Cut 1 (Car Crash)

Rough Cut 2

Rough Cut 3

It was after our first Rough Cut that we made a Vlogs as part of our 'Production Updates' In it we were commenting on our production so far, what we needed to improve, and what were the next steps... This allowed us to use self-evaluation for improvement.

I also gathered audience feedback by sharing the link with my friends and family on social media. Here is an example of me sending the link to my blog post Audience Feedback Survey that included our Final Cut and a survey I created using 'SurveyMonkey'

We also filmed feedback from audience at two stages of production, after our Rough Cut 3, and after producing our Final Cut.

Roles and working within a group

With everybody offering their help wherever possible within the production group of the prelim - In a smaller group of 3 creating our film opening we decided that roles should be assigned. We knew from the start that George would be the film editor, due to his expertise in this area, however from the initial roles that we decided, Harrison and I swapped (making me in charge of Cinematography and Harrison the director). This is due to the confidence that I developed for camera work as production progressed. As a Group we had to collaborate our ideas, compromising to keep everyone in the group happy with the developing product. On a whole I think that we worked well as a group, with some moments being frustrating, we pulled through to create a film opening that we are proud of, and hopefully others enjoy watching. On the contrary, I am looking forwards to working individually next year as I think I will challenge myself, and doing so develop the skills further that I started the AS course with, and advanced throughout the year. 



Audience Feedback Survey

This is our Final Cut of our film opening 'Hightail'. Please watch and kindly complete the survey beneath with your feedback.

Create your own user feedback survey

Question 6

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

During this years AS Media Studies course, I have developed the basic skills that I initially had, using technologies. I have realised how important technologies are in achieving a final product to be proud of.

Apple Macs

With no experience using this hardware prior to the course, I knew I needed to familiarise myself with them, as they are very different to the Windows PCs that I am used to. At the start of the course I explored the uses of the Macs, in order to understand them, and achieve the most from them. As I became more aware, I was confident to use the software that I needed to achieve my final product - our film opening.

Creating a Soundtrack on LogicPro

Using advice from our teacher, we decided to use LogicPro rather than Garage Band, in order to create a soundtrack for our film opening that reflected the advanced skills needed to use this piece of software.

We decided that for the base loop, that would run throughout the whole of the soundtrack was an 'Acoustic Picking' selected from the downloaded loops. Although there was many loops to choose from, we has heard a piece of royalty free music that would have been perfect for our film opening therefore we wanted to replicate aspects of it- so this is partly how we made our decisions.

As our film genre is a 'psychological thriller' we knew that it was vital that we created a build up of tension within the soundtrack that would co-ordinate with the tense atmosphere in the opening. We achieved this by building layers of very low, and very high pitched sounds. for example with 'Tube Bass' and 'String Essemble'.

Possibly the most important thing we achieved by using LogicPro, was being able to import in our film opening, so that we could match the visuals on screen, with the audio on the soundtrack. This was really effective and allowed the film opening to reflect a more perfected product, with advanced skills used in the production. An example of our visual and audio co-ordination can be seen in the first 40 seconds of our film, where the opening titles are shown: 

Final Cut Pro

This is the main software that we used to edit and produce our film opening. Using Final Cut Pro, I was surprised about what I learnt, and how it would help us achieve a product that would have been completely different without the use of technology. An effect that we used, that was vital for the success of our film opening was the 'masking' tool. Unfortunately, from the shots that we had taken to represent a car crash, were not convincing - therefore we had no way to show how our protagonist's (Molly) parents had died. This was vital to the plot, and we therefore had to find another way. Using 'masking' we were able to overlay clip 1 (of a cars headlights driving towards the camera), onto clip 2 (a point of view shot from Molly, looking onto her parents and out the front window). We used the tool to crop down clip 1 so that it fit around the perimeter of the front window.

Conclusion

In summary I believe the skills that I have developed, in using technologies to produce our film opening are vital skills that I can carry onto A level. Next year in Media Studies, the course will be more challenging and will require a larger scale of understanding for both shooting and editing - therefore having developed my skills I will be in a more prepared position to achieve a high level product.

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Here is a screenshot of my blog post containing my audience feedback survey, that I refer to in the video.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 3

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

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Costume is an important factor when creating a representation of a particular type of character. We wanted to portray our protagonist as a Stereotypical teenager – a sociable young girl, whose traumatic events of her recent life has been emotionally affected. We used costume to portray our character in certain ways, and involved:

 Comfortable Clothing – The sweater that Molly puts on during the film opening gives connotations with warmth and comfort, this emphasises the support Molly is seeking after her parents death. She is ultimately receiving comfort from her clothing rather than physically from humans.

Fashionable Clothing – Following the convention of psychological thrillers (the deterioration of a characters’s mental state as the film develops) we decided we wanted to continue to portray Molly as the young socialite that she is, at the start of the film. Although we only created a film opening, we know that if the film was to progress, this fashionable, socialite attire would gradually change into dark, plain, maybe dirty clothing (with depressing connotations) that would portray her emotional state having a physical impact.

Final Cut

Question 1

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

Reflecting our genre with specific Conventions. 

Key Conventions of Film openings: 
In terms of general conventions of film openings, we have overall reflected them rather than challange them. We created a list of these general conventions:

Ident:
A film opening will always show identification of the production company/companies involved in creating the media text - in our case 'GHK Productions'. Idents are used so that the audience can set their expectation for the film; if an audience was to see an Ident of a large, popular production company, a big budget block buster may be expected. 

Titles:

This conventions is designed to tell the audience the people involved in the making of the film. Doing this, is acts as an acknowledgement for these people. This convention helps to attract audiences, especially if a famous actor/director is involved. Our film opening involved the titles:

Director.

Filming. (We decided not to used the word Cinematography, as it was too long to fit out Titles format).

Editing.

Narrations:

This convention is designed to involve the audience straight away, in the film opening. It allows the audience to access background information, of what has happened prior, or is happening at the start of the film. It may also give an insight as to what type of characters are involved. In our film opening, apart from in the flashback with her parents, Molly is the only person that we see. This reflects the narration technique as it helps develop the idea that Molly has been deeply effected by her parents death. The voicemail that is involved is also a narration technique, that tells thew audience where Molly is now planning to go - to get Grandparents house. 

Rough Cut 3

After altering, and developing our film opening from our 2nd Rough Cut, we have made a 3rd Rough cut with the changes that we agreed on. Moving forwards we must improve, and add the following:

• Our production Ident to the start of the film opening.
• Change the titles so that both the Name, and the persons role are seen at the same time - this is much less confusing for an audience and is much more clear.
• Alter the sounds of audio within the film opening.
• Add into the end of the opening the shot of the Train coming into the station and stopping, improving the narrative for the audience. 

Rough Cut 2

After completing our second Rough Cut, we analysed what we needed to alter to improve our film opening and therefore come closer to achieving a Final Cut.
For our next Rough Cut we must:

• Add identical Sounds to all Flash back transitions.
• Take out first 2 voicemails, leaving the third. We have decided that the 3rd is only relevant, as it gives enough information of where 'Molly' is going. Deleting the other 2 allows an increase in narrative enigma, and allows us to focus the audience attention on the visuals rather than audio.
• Add the Soundtrack that we have made on 'Logic Pro'.
• Add in the Titles.
• Take out Flashbacks in Train Scene.
• Film and add shots of 'Molly' walking out of the Train Station, and down a country road, as well as a shot of a Train pulling into the station.

Production Update - Train

19th March 

On the 19th of March, we organised to meet and film the Train Scene from our film opening. Although the weather was not what we initially expected, or wanted, we agreed that in actual fact the rain played to our advantage in creating a pathetic fallacy of Molly's emotions. With this in mind, we were very happy with the shots we filmed inside the train, of Molly looking out the window, travelling away from her home town. However, due to the weather, and the awkward timing of Sunday train times, we were unable to film the vital shot of Molly walking from the station platform, onto the Train. This is however planned to be filmed very soon.

In the evening, we managed to film a couple more shots that we felt we needed to improve the Car Crash flashback at the start of our film opening. A specific one was filming car headlights traveling towards the camera, so that we could composite the shot onto the windscreen of a shot of Molly's Parents driving (replicating a car traveling directly towards them). 

Production Vlog 1 - So Far

Ident

Producing our Initial Idea

For our Ident, we would like to use either ink or paint to digitally, or literally reveal our production company name; GHK Productions.

To achieve this we used both the applications Illustrator and Premier. Firstly we designed our Production logo on Illustrator, choosing font and text size before lining up the text in a box-like fashion. Illustrator also allowed us to remove the background of the image, saving the picture file as a 'png'. This is important as a 'png' file allows pixels to be transparent, unlike a normal image file. We then searched and found an ideal clip of black ink, falling onto a white white background. After downloading this free clip, we used Premier to merge the two - so that when the black Ink fell into sight, it would reveal our white production company name. Finally we selected a suitable sound effect on Final Cut Pro, to put over our Ident.

Production Update - Molly's Bedroom

7th March 2017

On the 7th of March, after being unsure how to approach and improve the filming of the car crash, we decided to move on to 'Molly's Bedroom' scene - where she wakes from the car crash and packs her suitcase to leave home. Prior to any of the main shots - we began with filming some cut away shots of objects around Molly's bedroom, introducing the viewer to the Mis-en-scene relating to our protagonist character. We then moved onto our main shots. The lighting proved a difficulty at the beginning of filming, when filming Molly asleep (as it had to be relatively dark). To solve this we altered the white balance, and also selected a 'night' filter - making the picture colder and slightly lighter. After this we filmed a variety of shots (from different angles) of Molly opening her curtains, and also packing her bag. I feel this was a very successful shoot - learning from mistakes, we ensured we would have a lot of footage to choose from and the edit.

Rough Cut 1 - Car Crash

On the 2nd of March, we got our 3 actors together along with the driver of the second car, to film our first, rough, shoot. A lot of problems arose. Firstly it was very difficult for the actors to convincingly be angry at our character 'Molly', and the small amount of footage we were relatively happy with only made up a few seconds of the opening - not allowing the tension of the argument and atmosphere to build. This is not what we hoped for and taking this into consideration, we are considering not having any narrative instead purely focusing on the visual aspect of the scene. The visual side however also proved challenging as it was harder than we thought to get the right angles and shots to try show a car crash was happening. We will film again, this time getting a lot more footage than the first time - so that we have more to work with whilst editing.

Influences - Car Crash

The Car Crash

Our first scene involves a car crash. Knowing how difficult it would be to film a convincing car crash, without damaging any cars or injuring any people, we looked for insperation from different films. When seeing the car crash from 'The Vow', we thought we could attempt to remake some of the shots, before the crash actually happens (it is obvious that there will be a car crash, even before the cars hit).  Something that we particuallry thought looked good, was the slow motion effect on the shot of the oncoming car.

Time Planning and Organisation of Actors

Shot List

Before the start of our production, we have produced a shot list that we will keep with us during shoots to ensure good organisation when arriving at locations. Using this sheet we will know prior to the start of filming, what shots we need to complete.

Organisation of Actors

Prior to meeting at our set locations in Ilkley, as a group we communicated with each other and with our actors to ensure they knew the time and place we were meeting. There is also an example below of a message sent to one of our actors (Molly's Mother) with a link of the screenplay so she was able to familiarise herself with her lines.

Key Directors

David Fincher

David Fincher is an American film director and music video director. David is noted for his speciality in this genre - psychological thrillers and this is why he has achieved his biggest successes within the genre, including the directing of the films 'Fight Club' and 'Se7en'. His films possess plots of mystery and twists and also follow the conventions of psychological thrillers. For example many of his films often have low-key lighting with green or blue tinted colour temperature. David Fincher has had multiple nominations for awards as well as impressively winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the BAFTA Award for Best Direction.

Key Films

Gone Girl

This film is a key film from our particular genre as Gone girl is an example of a successful modern day psychological thriller, incorporating conventions of drama, mystery and also crime. Its budget was $61 million and the overall box office was $164 million. Although psychological thrillers are not the most popular of films, Gone Girl is a great example of a psychological thriller that has captured audiences in the modern day, changing their initial opinion on the genre. This is personally one of my favourite films of this genre - it is gripping and keeps you constantly calculating the situation as the mystery unfolds throughout the film (just what a psychological thriller should make you do). It is interesting that in this film you follow the protangonist and antagonist, Amy and Nick, through their journey of mystery and crime, and also hear them both narrating different parts in the film.

The Shining

Noted as one of 'The Top Psychological Thrillers of all time' this film is a famous in this genre category, and is widely known as 'one of the greatest horror films ever made'. It is a 1980 British-American psychological thriller based on the book by Stephen King. Its budget was $15million and its overall Box Office was $44.4, for the time this film was made this was very successful indeed. This film never fails to strike fear into audiences - as they watch a once nurturing father and husband warping into a murder. The question is asked 'where can their safety lie, if not in the ones who nurture?'. 

Locations and Props

Location

As a group we decided to go to our first 2 scene, main locations to make a vlog. Using my car, we demonstrated roughly what we would like our shots to look like, and to get used to the location we would be filming in, before going and filming in the dark. This trip proved very useful in the final pre-production of our film opening - Hightail.

Little Miss Sunshine Film Opening Analysis

Little Miss Sunshine

Director: Jonathan Dayton , Valerie Faris

Year: 2006

Production Co: Big Beach Films 

Budget: $8 million

Box Office: $59 million 

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American come-drama road film and the directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. The film stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin.

Opening Shots

The first shot that we see is a central composition shot, where we can see a young girl. Immediately, from the mis-en-scene of the shot, especially from the characters attire (e.g. glasses) the representation of a 'nerd' is made to the audience. She switches on the TV.

This next shot is an extreme close up, where we see a reflection of what the young girl is watching (the shot below of the TV). From context knowledge, i know that a focused theme in this film is 'Dreams' and following them; the close up with this specific reflection gives the impression that the girl through the lens of her glasses is looking at what she wishes to become.

This middle shot, uses the contrasts to present the idea that the young girls dream is far from being achieved. Her age, attire and basic mis-en-scene (what looks like a living room) is a large contrast to the glamorous women that she can see on the TV. The idea that the TV is an artificial picture also develops this idea.
The woman on the TV is continued to be represented as a role model in two shots that shot the young girl imitating the women.

Sounds 

There is also sounds used throughout this film opening; a piano melody is being played. The mellow sound of the piano, links in with the idea of a dreamy idea in the young girls head. The piano is also played sharply which gives an excited atmosphere. 

We can then hear a TV presenter announcing the winner of a beauty pageant - that we can see on the screen.

Anamatic

Using iMovie, I cropped down the story board into seperate shots. I then recorded a voice over; a basic description of what was to happen in each shot. In the first scene I have added a 'driving car' sound effect, followed by a 'car crash' sound effect. In the next scene, and then continuing until the end of the film opening, I have added the soundtrack that we hope to use.

Character Profiles / Cast

Protagonist - Molly Smith 

Played by: Molly Cheetham

Age: 16

Physical Appearance: Blonde, Blue eyes, short (in height)

Characteristics: Socialite, whos trauma has left her unable to continue her high interaction with the outside world. Emotionally unstable, anxious and an introvert. 

Paul Smith - Father of Molly

Played by: Nick Hewitt 

Age: 45

Physical Appearance: Grey, well groomed haired, muscular and presentable

Characteristics: Short-tempered, traditional and firm (in terms of parenting), frustrated with Molly's reoccurring disappearances.

Sonja Smith - Mother of Molly

Played by: Georgina Rose

Age: 43

Physical Appearance: Blonde, attractive, smart 

Characteristics: Caring and understanding, the diplomat in situations. She wishes to help Molly, without loading her with negatively (unlike her husband)

Audience Polling

We used the website 'SurveyMonkey' to create a survey about Psychological Thrillers as part of our audience research. After researching in other ways, as a group we already had an initial idea of what to expect our audience to be (their gender and age). We were intrigued as to if this survey would produce the outcome we expected. We also took into consideration that the survey would be bias due to the fact that we were posting the link on our social medias, that did not allow a massive range of people to take the survey. However with about 100 responses, we were confident that the survey would definitely help us in some way.

Our Survey - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BK5MG58

Most of the people who took the survey had watched, and enjoyed a psychological thriller...

We then saw many responses that fitted with our target audience research. Here are a few examples

Primary Audience - Female 16-25

Secondary Audience - Male 21-35

Storyboard

This is the story board for our film opening, involving the key shots we will use. In our final cut we are sure that extra cut away shots, and establishing shots will be used. However at the moment we are unsure on what these will be...

Screenplay

Hightail

Screenplay by George Stott,

Kathryn Sammon and Harrison Lambert

EXT. ROAD – NIGHT

MOLLY, PAUL and SONJA in car. Paul is driving, Sonja in the front seat and Molly in the back. Paul and Sonja are angry at Molly for not telling them where she is. 

PAUL

So are you going to tell us where you

were?

(Molly ignores)

SONJA

Don’t ignore your father Molly. 

Why didn’t you tell us where you were?

MOLLY

My phone died.

PAUL 

Don’t bullshit us. Tell us the truth.

SONJA

We give you so much responsibility. The

least you could do is tell us the truth.

(Molly ignores)

Paul turns around to look at Molly. Car comes from a perpendicular road. Hits the car the family are in. Screen goes black; audio continues.

MOLLY

Mum?!

Pause

MOLLY

Dad?!

Pause

MOLLY

Please!

INT. MOLLY’s BEDROOM – DAY

Molly wakes up. Starts playing voicemails. Starts to pack her belongings. She packs all her clothes and places funeral brochure on top of belongings. Molly closes her suitcase and then the title appears on a reveal.

Voicemail #1

Hey Molly, hope your okay, where were

you last week? I didn't see you at school,

ring me when you can.

Voicemail #2

Good Afternoon Molly, its Mr Smith,

I hope you are well. We are concerned

of your attendance in the past week,

would you kindly have your guardian call

us back, to discuss the reason for this.

Thank you.

PAUSE

Voicemail #3

Hi darling its Grandma, hope you’re up

and packed, let me know when you are

safely on the train, me and Grandpa are

excited to see you, we have everything

sorted for your new school. See you soon.

INT. LEEDS TRAIN STATION – DAY

Molly is sat in train station waiting for her train. She gets on the train and sits down.

INT. TRAIN – DAY

Molly is sat on the train. Puts headphones in and puts on music. Puts her head in her hands.

FLASHBACK STARTS

EXT. CEMETARY – DAY

Molly stood on her own at grave. Crying to herself. Puts flowers on the grave and walks off.

FLASHBACK FINISHES

INT. BURLEY TRAIN STATION – DAY

Molly arrives at the train station. The tannoy announces she’s arrived at her destination. Gets off the train.

TRAIN TANNOY

The next station is Burley. Please take

all your belongings with you. 

Molly gets off the train and starts walking down an alley. The train doors close whilst she is walking down.