Evaluation

 

Evaluation



Bloody Mary Title screen

When we started the production of the opening of the film, as a group we realised that it would be hard to create the idea of a soldier going off to war as we couldn’t get access to any costumes and we couldn’t find anyone who would be in our production. From this happening we had to create a new idea for our film, so we used the idea of Bloody Mary, that we had recently presented an idea for in our pitch.

From this we developed our idea further and looked at horror films such as saw and paranormal activity to get inspiration, however we knew to an extent what we wanted to achieve even though our ideas evolved as the filming process went on.

 

Q1

Our film ‘Bloody Mary’ has a female antagonist which is unconventional in a Horror/Thriller as you are normally shown a male antagonist who usually goes after a frightened woman. This is seen in the film Halloween where Michael Myers goes after a teenage girl after previously killing his older sister as a child. By having a female antagonist we as a group are challenging the conventions of a horror film. However the characterisation of Bloody Mary is quite creepy which tends to be seen in any horror film as something has always happened to the character to turn them into a killer, in the case of our film you see this when the character Sian is murdered by Beth.

This still from the film shows Max, but at the same time we overlayed the clip of Bloody Mary as he is telling Kirsty not to be afraid.

 

We have also used a male protagonist in the opening, this is because he would later become an important role in the film and become the hero due to the fact he’d be searching for Kirsty. This follows many film conventions as a male is always shown to be strong and heroic, which we want Max to be throughout the rest of the film. This follows the conventions of film noir as a male detective is always there to rescue an unfortunate female, which in the plot of our film fits Max’s character.





Seance scene- Lighting source
for this scene was the candles.

In the film we have also had to incorporate lighting this is because a horror film will normally be filmed at night and the lighting is one of the main conventions of a horror film. In the opening you will see that we have used candles which are typically used in séance scenes. We have also incorporated a flash in one scene using a camera flash, by doing this we was able to create tension as the subject in the light couldn’t actually be seen.


You're the reason I'm dead -
the text Kirsty recieved.

The only other lighting we had used was a streetlight, webcam this meant you could only see the characters face and nothing else which worked better with the flash as nothing was given away. We also used a phone which became major in the plot.

 

 

The music that we have also put in our opening isn’t too creepy as we have tried to use the idea that Kirsty is listening to music, this means the piece we used had to be suitable for somebody to listen to so we couldn’t use sound effects, but at the same time we had to pick a piece that suggested something to the audience, you can hear this in the lyrics ‘Where did I go wrong I lost a friend’ hinting to the fact Sian had died but at the same time suggesting Kirsty has done something wrong, this being the Bloody Mary Curse. Where we could we have used church bells and other creepy sounds to help create a tense atmosphere throughout, you can see this in the graveyard and also when the screen goes to white noise.

 The original clip of the graveyard, here you can see that it was in colour.

Below another clip of the graveyard scene where we have changed the colour of the clip using Premier pro.

Other things we have also included in our film that show some of the conventions of a horror film are the fact we have used young girls, we have done this as a girl tends to be more vulnerable, especially when there alone, but it’s also iconic in most horrors.

The main setting of our opening was in a house. The reason we did this is because you are bound to feel safe there, however it’s ironic that no one is actually safe in this genre of film. The house is also located in a small village which for a horror film follows the conventions as many people are left in their houses but something always happens.

Q2




Psycho

In the opening of our film, there aren’t necessarily many social groups, however the characters in the film are teenagers, which in a sense would show them to be more naïve than they might be if they were older. In a horror or thriller it would tend to be the idiotic teens that are bound to do something stupid and turn up dead later on, which you see slightly in the opening of the film however there is a cliff hanger at the end of the opening where nobody knows what happened to the character Kirsty. In horror films the girls or women in the film are white, single and always shown to be the victim, however in our film this has been changed and challenged as we have brought in two females that both become murderers which isn’t usual at all but we thought this was a good idea as you are always seeing a strong male who goes after someone weaker than themselves. Another factor you can see in our film is that we only have Caucasian actors in it, this is typical of many Hollywood films especially some of the films made in the 60’s like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Q3

Twisted Pictures logo

By looking into different Horror and Thriller films like Saw and Seven, I have been able to find out about what studios would tend to distribute this genre of film. This includes Twisted Pictures who are known to produce the saw series. There are also studios that would distribute Horrors and Thrillers such as Lionsgate, who distributed films like the Hunger games and Texas chainsaw massacre. New Line Cinema also a film studio distributed the thriller Se7en.

We have also looked at Paramount who have been involved with the Paranormal activity films but as our film is more of a smaller independent movie, Twisted pictures would be more suitable to help us distribute a film like ours as they would be able to help us on the production side of the film as they are an independent company, but at the same time, they could team us up with a main studio. At the same time we would also have to think about the budget for our film, by looking at the first Paranormal Activity there estimated budget was $15000 (IMDB) and then by looking at the budget the first Saw film had it was $1,200,000 (IMDB). Realistically if we were making our film the budget we would use is £10,000 as it’s more affordable for us, but at the same time this is because we are a new film company starting out and we wouldn’t be recognised like Lionsgate or Universal, given the reason we wouldn’t be able to afford a high budget, however after the first release our profit margin should rise enabling us to spend more on production, this is exactly what happened to the Paranormal franchise as there estimated budget is now $5,000,000.  As a new company we would have to lay money aside for special effects if we included them in the film, locations we might need to use or even studio space, but there is also the large cost of the actors we might want to be in our films as the more experienced they are the more they cost to hire or even keep on for sequels.

Q4

As a group we have also thought about who our target audience would be. As a whole film with the ideas we have had it would make the film an 18 as we wanted to show how Mary got pay back on those who hurt her, but also the ones who did the curse. However the opening of our film is more likely aimed at an audience aged 15 onwards, this is because there are hints of violence and the potential film the could follow doesn’t have to be as gruesome as it might be as an 18 but there would more than likely be some to keep the audience interested in the film. On top of this we have to think about the different social classes that our film might be targeted at, people that might be lower class might not be able to afford to go to see a film as well as buying it, however someone of a higher class would be able to this means will need to set a price that everyone will be able to afford and it also means it won’t take too much money off somebody that doesn’t have it. The way we can set these prices will be by looking at ABC1 and C2DE social grading’s so we can find out more about the people we are targeting with our product, for instance someone middle class or someone who’s working class.

18 age certificate

15 age certificate

 



Q5

If we were a major film company we would also be looking at how we could attract the audience and also how we would address them. We would do this by marketing the product and creating merchandise. Examples of these marketing methods are things like promotional posters for billboards and cinemas as they would be able to advertise the film before it’s actually been released, making people aware of it, but we’d also have a movie premier as well as letting our actors do PR junkets, chat shows and interviews. 

We would also use viral marketing strategies by using social networking sites to share pages and also clips of the film, this allows people to become part of the film as they could help find clues or even have to take part in activities to be able to see more, this worked for the film The Dark Knight rises, when fans would go in search of graffiti bats to reveal character posters. Merchandise is also important as people are likely to get more excited and will want memorabilia of the film, whether it’s an action figure or costumes of the characters, however all of these methods are able to entice the audience. 



Bat graffiti that was used as part
 of The Dark Knight Rises campaign.

But without looking at the marketing side, when making the film, we have left a cliff hanger in the opening. This can be seen as a technique to entice the audience into watching the film. This is because suspense and tension throughout start to build and the audience become curios as they want to see the ending. We thought the use of a cliff hanger would be good as it gave us something to use as a marketing strategy, for example the opening could be leaked to the public and just by not knowing what happened to the character, this would initially make the audience want to see more, giving them the desire to come and see what else the film has to offer.

Q6
From the process of constructing the opening to Bloody Mary I have learnt more about the editing side of making a film as it took more to get our final result, for example you never kept anything the same for that long as there might be an extra bit of film that you had recorded that would fit better so it would be changed, we’d also see what would work better. 

During the process I have also been learning about the different ways you can edit the clips together, using dissolve, a fade that could go to a black screen or a white screen as well as the different affects you can put onto the clips you have. For example we have put a clip on top of the other by making it smaller and putting it in the corner of the screen, we also added noise onto some of the clips using the filters that were available to us and it made the webcam clips look more realistic as they were too clear when we recorded them on the camera. 

A still from our film opening, as it was a clear image
we added grain to the clip to make it look like
a web cam quality image.

But when we was using the camera we found it easy to use as we’d previously used it to film our preliminary task. One successful thing that did come from filming in the dark was that the camera went out of focus at one point then came back into focus, this created an effect before we even edited the clip. 

We had to create our own titles. To create the Bloody Mary titles we used the same writing and changed the colour on each slide, this changed the colour from white to red and when played as a sequence is meant to symbolise the blood dripping.

And for our studio logo to have a silhouette flash up, we created the image first, which contained the name of the studio and then used a clip I had previously recorded with the flash on it to put onto the studio name. However as it was part of another clip we had to edit the clip, this included adjusting the brightness so that it would stand out as well as changing the opacity of the clip so that it didn't cover up the two red S's. 

To start we put the two s's together with the writing underneath, but we didn't like the white background.


So we then used a black background with white writing, this meant the red and the white stood out and the colours we decided on now suit the horror theme.


We then decided to include the silhouette and this is a still of what it looks like when it flashes onto the screen.




Q7
From the preliminary task I have learnt that it’s always going to be hard to work in a group as everyone’s always going to have different opinions to you and because of this you have to learn how to incorporate everyone’s ideas into the making of the film to get a successful outcome. The other issues we faced this time round was that it was harder to get everyone in the group together to film as someone might have plans when you arrange to go out to film, this leaves some of the team doing more than others which did happen at times, however in the preliminary task we filmed at the sixth form which meant we were going to be able to film without it having to be planned.

In terms of using the camera equipment I have found it easy to do as we as a group have had experience before. However when filming for our opening we have used two different cameras, this includes the HD video camera and a Cannon 1100D which isn’t a traditional film camera, but even in this case we managed to get successful shots. 

The shots we did get all kept to the 180 degree rule, which was important as one step over can change the way the film is seen and this could potentially confuse the viewer. Also as we never used many technical shots, we were focussed more on close up shots of the characters Max and Kirsty as we had to see there reactions but at the same time we had to make the shots look like a webcam was used. The other major shots we included were pans and we used one high angle shot, by doing this we were able to move on from the preliminary task as the shots we used were more diverse. 

Even though we had learnt from what happened before we couldn't stop things happening during production, this includes group members not being there on certain days which we couldn't exactly control but we got around it by taking to the roles of each other, so if we wasn't meant to film we would have to which insured that we would have footage to edit.  

New Idea

Bloody Mary

 

Bloody Mary was our new idea, this came about when we realised it would be harder to do a war film opening. The initial idea we had for Bloody Mary was that she would be one of the wives of Henry 8th, you can see this in the pitch we have made previously. However by looking at it we realised that the idea would have to be adapted further to make the goal achieveable, this is where we came up with the plot.
The plot revolves around a teenage girl, Kirsty, who gets involved in a seance along with Sian to do the Bloody Mary curse that they had previously been told about. But little does Kirsty know her future hangs in the balance when Sian is later murdered, without any hint to why. It is after this incident mysterious things start to happen, and Kirsty is left startled during a web cam conversation with Max, knowing little about whats lurking behind her.
 

The Storyboard:

 

 

 

 

 

Characters:
Kirsty
Played by Kirsty Guy
Role: Is targetted throughout the film
Costume: Jumper (Casual) and trousers
Props: Candle, Mobile phone, Laptop
Major Character



Sian
Played by Sian Ryley
Role: Murdered girl who later comes back as a ghost
Costume: Casual clothing during the first two scenes then darker clothing later on
Props: Candle, Cushion
Main Character/Antagonist




Max
Played by Max Colin
Role: Is a friend of Kirsty who is present when she is taken. He later has to try to save Kirsty's life.
Costume: Casual t-shirt
Props: Laptop
Major Character

Beth
Played by Beth Fowler
Role: Sian's murderer, but later a victim of Bloody Mary
Props: Brick
Minor Character

Script:

First Scene:

Kirsty + Sian:*Bloody Mary Curse* “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, I’m not afraid of Bloody Mary.”

 

Second Scene:

Sian: “Mathew, Mathew is that you?”

Third Scene:

*typing over messenger on computer*

Kirsty: "hello"

Max: "I heard you wanted to talk to me? Do you want to talk over WebCam?"

Kirsty: "Yes, one minute, let me just sort out my camera"

Max: "okay"

*Open Webcam*

Max: “Hi, are you ok?”

Kirsty: “yes I’m fine, I’m just freaked about last night that’s all”

Max: “why? There’s nothing to be afraid about, you know it’s not real”

Kirsty: “yes I suppose”

Max: “Kirsty, what was that behind you?”

Kirsty: “what was what? There’s nothing behind me. Hang on I've just got a text”

*text reads* “You’re the reason I’m dead”

Max: “Kirsty, Kirsty what’s the matter”

*Camera goes blank/ fuzzy*

Max: “Kirsty, are you there? Kirsty?”

*Titles comes in* 

Filming

Filming

As we only have a certain amount of time to film our opening, we have put together a filming schedule so that we know what we are filming on a certain day and what it is exactly that we need. For example we wont need all of the characters at once so by going off this it will save time for us and not waste our actors time.



 We have also emailed the air museum informing them of what we would like to do, and asking whether it would be posible to film on the site.



Casting

Casting

 

Young Arthur

Played by: Cal

Role: Young pilot in WW2

Costume: Army uniform

Main character

 

Arthur

Played by: Ken

Costume: Cardigan/Jumper with trousers

Prop: Diary/Photo album

Main character

 

Katherine

Played by: Kirsty

Role: Arthurs wife/ Concentration camp victim

Costume: Skirt and blouse/ Pyjamas

Major character

Props
Diary/ Photo album
Union Jack



Role Allocation

Role Allocation

As we are working in a group of three we have decided that we should each have a role, however we all agreed that we will help each other if we need it.

Director: Sian
Co-directors: Kirsty and Beth
Writer: Kirsty Guy

Camera operator: Beth

Editor:  All

Sound: All will have a say in what sounds are used, but we also need to make sure we can here any dialog thats being said.

Storyboard

Storyboard

 

 Below you will see the storyboard that has been made for the opening of our film.

 

Script

 



The Pitch

 

The Pitch

 

As a group we have started to look at different ideas we might have for the beginning of our film. I have started this by mind mapping ideas we could use.
For our ideas, we have been looking at the opening of different films as well as looking at magazine articles.

Below are the articles we have used.

 This is one of the articles that gave us the idea for our Thriller and Horror pitches. On the left there was a piece about the atheist ten commandments and this is where we got the idea that Mary would use them to be able to teach the children the lesson. Also as you can see from the right, we got our idea of the etch a sketch from the picture in the corner of the page.

Below are the mind mapped ideas that we could use when thinking of the final idea, this screen shot below shows you the first pitch I had made for our Thriller movie.

 

 
Here you can see that I have suggested that the film will be set in the future.

I have also incorporated the idea of using an etch a sketch to show the murders. This idea came from the newspaper article as its not a normal object that could appear in a film of this genre.




Also from this description of the pitch you can see that I have tried to connect the etch a sketch to the murderer to change the dynamic as your not seeing the murders through anything but your seeing it through the pictures that are drawn.

I have also came up with an idea for a horror film. From the mind map you can see that the story revolves around Bloody Mary. It is Mary who was once married to Henry the 8th, and was beheaded by him.
The idea we had was that a statue of a woman in a grave yard would be cursed, and everybody knew this. However children would go to it and say the curse aloud while standing around. We then decided that the 10 children that went to the statue would all get cursed expect for one boy, Peter.
As you can see we said they would all get put into different situations that would test them, but it was only Peter that would ever survive. And all of this occurred because Mary wanted revenge and did this by using the 10 commandments.

 



We have also created an idea for a Rom-Com.

 

The idea we had was that two very different people would keep meeting and as you can see from the mind map on the left, it would happen over 7 days.
In these 7 days our two characters would find themselves coming face to face with each other in different circumstances, for example they might find themselves stuck in a lift together or they might have to share taxi.
Other things you can see from the mind map is that both people are opposites, this makes it harder for them both to admit that there could be something however they have to over come the fact they dislike each other. You can also see that we have used the idea of Beauty and the Beast but we wanted to show the man as being handsome and good looking and we wanted to show our female character as somebody that hasn't got a lot going for them, but they are still loved after all.

Our Pitch
The way we came up with our idea for the opening of our film was that we used one of the newspaper articles that we'd been given. As a group we all had different ideas so we all shared what we had before making the final decision.

From this screen shot you can see that we have picked out certain words including rampage, world and Germany. It was from here that our ideas began to develop to get the final pitch.














 Kirsty's idea:
A romantic film based on a solider and a woman who fall in love during the first world war. However we realised that it would have to be a Rom-Com, and by adding a comedy aspect to the film would possibly ruin the storyline.

Beth' idea:
A Thriller involving a couple in modern day, this would include a murder trial. But a criticism of this film is that the storyline is too basic and the outcome could possibly be expected. It has also been done before.

My idea:
I had a similar idea to Kirsty which involved the war, but I liked that fact you could make it into a horror. So I thought you might be able have a soldier who sees Auschwitz and what went on, but it would change him. The criticisms we had for this idea was that we might need a lot of people for filming which would have been hard, it is also a hard idea to develop.

Even though the ideas we had all come up with were good, we decided that we would have to collaborate two ideas as we all liked different things and this is why we decided to make a Romantic Thriller. As all of us liked the idea of the film being based around a love story in war time we decided the Thriller aspect of it would make the story more interesting.

Plot
Our plot is about a war veteran who fought during WW2, as he was exposed to such horrors he became scared by what he had seen. However like many of the other veterans fighting alongside him he was in love with a woman back home before he left. While he was away he was part of a group of soldiers that discovered Auschwitz, which at the time was one of the many concentration camps created by the Nazis. It is here that Arthur seen a woman that reminded him off his wife, changing his life forever. From what he had experienced and witnessed during his time in war, Arthur suffered with post traumatic stress disorder, leading to confusion and flash backs. However as he was still at war there was nothing that could be done to help him. The scenes Arthur had seen would never leave his mind making him take the actions he did, in which he killed the Auschwitz prisoner. Found out by his Lieutenant, Arthur was sent home to his wife, where he was no longer able to cope with the life he had. As his flashbacks were still happening Arthur could never forget the day he took the prisoners life and began to mistake her for his wife and this is when he took her life too. Found out he was later arrested and charged for her murder, living the rest of his life a mental home coping with what he had done to her.

Characters
In the opening of our film you are introduced to three characters, these are Arthur both old and young, Katherine, Arthurs wife and Arthurs carer.

 Arthur is a pilot in WW2, he is a vetran that while at war suffers from what hes seen, leading to dramatic circumstances.







By having Arthur as an older man, it meant we could look back into his future and create a story behind him. The role he has is that he is the one that takes us into the film.






You are introduced to Katherines character when she is saying bye to Arthur, throughout the film you would then learn she was killed by him.




 

Target Audience

Questionnaire Summary

As a group we have conducted three different questionnaires, these were Rom-com, Horror and Thriller. We have done this so that we can figure out who will be the target audience for our film and also what film our potential audience will want to watch.

I have conducted the Horror Questionnaire and I have included 10 different questions so that I can get a feel of the different things people would want to be included in a horror film.

 

Below you will see a completed questionnaire that I had conducted.

 

The page below shows you the second page of the questionnaire.

The graphs below show you what I have found out by doing my questionnaire.

From this chart you can see that 7 out of  the 10 people I have asked prefer to see a male antagonist in a horror film. Whereas 3 people have said they would like to see a female antagonist.

The reasons behind my findings in graph one can be seen in this graph as I have asked the respondents to explain why they prefer a male or female antagonist.
Here you can see that the main reason was because the antagonist would be scarier if they were male, however the respondents who said they'd like to see a female antagonist said this as you rarely see a female villain.

Another question I have asked was how far into the film the respondent would like the antagonist to be revealed. 9 out of the 10 people I have asked said they would like to see them revealed as the story developed and not straightaway.

From this pie chart you can see that the character options I have suggested have varied answers, but from looking at the chart you can see that the percentage of answers are similar in a way that 20% or 2 people out of the 10 have said they would like to see a character similar to IT, Michael Myers or another option by giving it to me themselves by entering an answer in the 'Other' box, however only 10% or 1 out of the 10 people asked have said they would like to see a character similar to Jigsaw or Freddy Kruger, both proving to be not as popular.

 

From looking at this graph you can see that 6 out of the 10 people who answered the questionnaire said they would like to see the murders happen through their eyes using a build up of different shots, this being the majority as the other 4 people who answered said they would like to see the murders through the eyes of the killer using a subjective point of view shot.

This graph shows you that70% out of 100 or 7 out of 10 people have sad they would like there to be a known background/history behind the murders that might happen throughout the film, however 30% or 3 out of the 10 people asked said they would prefer the murder to happen randomly.

From this graph you can see that I have asked which way the music should be played to create atmosphere, from the chart you can see that the blue section of the doughnut symbolising 8 respondents would prefer the music to be played fast and slow, whereas 2 respondents would like the music to be quiet and slow.
By looking at this, it would be the better way to create atmosphere if we was to create a horror film, however we can use this evidence to help us see what music we can include in another genre of film.

Here you can see that I have asked whether the film would be better filmed in the night or in the day and from the graph you can see that 8 out of 10 people have said they would prefer it if it was done at night. However two people have said they would like it to be set during the day.
By taking this into account, it would be better to film at night, also by doing this it would make the film more frightening.

As my 9th question I asked where the respondent would prefer the film to be located, from the graph you can see that 1 out of the 10 people asked said city, whereas the other 9 said a rural area.



To this I then asked a follow up question as I wanted to find out where the respondents would like the action to take place.

 As you can see from the chart on the right, the answers I have collected for question 10 are varied. I have also only collected 9 answers as the respondent who said they would like the film to be set in a city didn't answer. However I have still been able to collect the data as I have found out that 4 out of the 10 people asked said they would like to see the action take place in the woods. Other data I have collected was that 2 people said they would like to see the action take place in a house along with 2 people that said they would like to see the film set in a school. Also from the graph the last bit of data I have collected was that 1 out of the 10 respondents said they would like to see the film set at a lake.

Below are the Thriller and Rom-Com questionnaires we have also carried out.

Thriller Questionnaire

 

Rom-Com Questionnaire

Research 

By looking at the data on the FBI statistical year book, I have found out that the Thriller genre was ranked 11th in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2010, this suggests its not a very popular genre, however that year 20 films were released.

*Add graph

I have also learnt that Romance as a genre is quite popular as it was ranked 5th by the box office in 2010 with 19 film releases at the time. Horror then followed and was ranked 8th by the box office with 31 film releases that year.

Thriller

By using filmsite, I have been able to find out more about Thriller as a genre. I have found out that these films are known to promote excitement, suspense, anticipation, uncertainty and anxiety. I have also found out that Thrillers should provide thrills and they should leave the audience on a cliff hanger while the plot is building to its climax.

Thrillers can be:
                          - Action/Adventure
                          - Sci-fi thrillers
                          Or
                          - Romantic comedy thrillers.

They are similar to Horror films as they are both meant to create tension and suspense throughout, however Thrillers don't draw attention to the character in the plot, they focus more on the danger thats going on around them.

This is why the characters are important in these films. Characters with dark pasts are sometimes used as you might be able to tie them into the plot, it also adds to the excitement as you tend to see the characters in the film come into conflict. A twisted relationship could also be used to show character relatioships as something going wrong in the plot could lead to revenge. As well as this by having one or more of the characters unknowing to what they might have done or what there involved in, it adds to the anticipation that the viewer might feel.

One film director that was known for creating Thrillers was Alfred Hitchcock. He was known as a 'master of suspence Thrillers', this was due to the fact he knew how to manipulate his audiences fears. One way that he was able to do this was that he would place victims in a strange situation, which would be life threatening. He would also use silhouettes of people to create more of a threat as no one would know if theres actually anybody there.
He also used shots such as zoom and cross cutting in his films to build up the anxiety the viewer is feeling.

Ratings
Ratings are used so that a film can be approved or disapproved before being released. By rating a film, it ensures you that the highest level of protection has been taken when looking at the content of the movie. The movie rating system looks at the things included in the film such as drugs, horror or violence. It is then that its given a rating.

For example:

U - suitable for all audiences
PG - Parental Guidence
12 - Video release is suitable for someone 12 and over
15 - Suitable for ages 15 and over
18 - Suitable for adults.