Media Coursework Progress - Individual & Group Evaluation

Looking back on myself as a media student as well as our group at the start of our project, I would say that my group and I were blind as to what we were up against. However, this was a long time ago and I feel my group and I have made dramatic steps in the right direction to create good progress. As an individual I feel I have grown in my skills, understanding, leadership and teamwork within my project. At the beginning of my project I thought I could just get along by just posting to my blog every now and again and just steadily keep up with the work. I thought just because I knew how to use Adobe (Premier Pro & After Effects) well and had knowledge of camera and filming I would easily be able to complete my project. However I then realised that it was much harder than it all seemed. This realisation came when we started our continuity task. We set out as a group going to film with not a lot of research to begin thinking it would be easy and we would have completed it within a day. Nonetheless the group and I then realised we had to completely up our games if we wanted to get a good grade and do well in a project. This was because we had nowhere near enough footage. Everything was wrong with the filming, the story was terrible, the shots weren't good enough, we didn't have enough research, planning or blogs and overall we weren't putting enough in. I then started to take much more time to learn all the different shots and what we needed to do as a group so I could improve and also help my group improve with our research and planning; this is because my teachers helped me to understand what my group and I were missing. At this stage, in my head I knew this is where I had to take lead of my group and start to get things done. This is where my group and I made huge leaps in progress due to this change. I then started to post all the research, planning and other blog posts. As well as personally create brainstorms, intros, music, storyboards and shot lists to show the steps and additionally what I wanted to do. This is where I felt the rest of my group still hadn't realised what was needed etc. Therefore needing me to do most research, planning and blogging as I was afraid if I didn't do so and start doing this work we needed to do, it would never get done. We then started to film, I had created a good story line with a very detailed storyboard for us to follow as a group so we could get as much done as quickly as possible. On our first shoot literally everything was unusable and not good enough. I then realised my group and I both needed to become more knowledgeable of our camera skills and just my group on their editing skills. We then all overstepped this with some of us learning more and progressing more than others in the group. We filmed more with only certain group members making the effort and then me perosnally editing whilst trying to teach my group how to use Premier Pro so they could edit also if they wanted to. When filming and editing it was clear who wanted to do well in our project and made efforts to try and film, edit, blog, by trying to meet up and taking part in editing, research, blogging and filming itself. This was only done by myself and certain other group members really, which I felt was a shame as our group had great potential and were doing very well, whilst looking towards a good grade, but this was hard to lice up to with some of my groups low efforts. However, this was not because of the entire group and as I said, some of us progressed more than others at this stage. On the other hand, we then went on to film and edit even more and we have now come to a very strong position in our project as we near the final stages of it. I feel individually I have progressed considerably in my understanding of what to do in research, planning, camera skills, editing skills, leadership and teamwork etc. I feel much better about myself in my media work now and feel I can take on next year well with my knowledge. Although as a group we haven't all progressed together at the same speeds and some of us have been putting a lot more in to the project than others which shows in the final piece and our blogs; however I feel overall our actual groups work has completely shifted and come to much higher level that is able of a good grade. I feel as a group everyone has made progression, just some more than others. I also think as a group and individually everything is going well now and we're where we should be.

Our Productions Intro

For our productions intro we decided we wanted something simple but keeping to our theme but not to extravagant. Therefore we wanted to keep it black and white with not a lot of animation like this with just a light going over some text saying the production name with black background. I thought this sticks to the theme of our genre as when I have looked at previous production intros they tend to be very simple and stick to a similar theme, especially in horrors and thrillers.

Music In Our Opening

For our background music we wanted to have something on going throughout the opening that wasn't too obvious and just created a ominous tone for the opening. Furthermore we wanted a ongoing piece of background music that reflecting on our genre as a horror-thriller. After searching through many non-copyright free music sites I eventually found this piece of music that lasts just over 3 minutes. I thought this was perfect for our opening as it was exactly what we were looking for in terms of audio and genre. It had an ambiguos tone to it as well as giving the opening character rather than the silence we currently had. This music was perfect to have in the background quietly due to the monotone level and the synths to portray our horror-thriller genre. 

Our Final Intro

 The video above is our initial intro. We thought this was good but could be improved as we thought the wiggle was very fake and ruined the tone of the film. However we wanted some kind of static or jumpy effect to make the text stand out more rather than just coming down and staying on screen.



Therefore we got rid of the wiggle in our second intro and instead used a blur as the text came down. Furthermore we then carried this blur on as if the text was jumping and then the text zoomed out in to the background and faded away as if it were going in to the distance. However as this was going to be at the start and the establishing shot would be after we then thought it would be better for the text to zoom back out through the 'O' again and then showing the scene. Furthermore we thought the moving blue looked unnatural.



Finally we came to the following into and we were all happy with it as it was exactly what we wanted the text zoomed down with a blur and then the text stays on screen for a while to establish the title and create tension. This then zooms back out with a blur again and fades into the next scene. This was exactly what we wanted and when placed on our timeline we knew it was the perfect intro for our opening due to the tension, tone and look it gives to our opening.

Our Characters

We decided to pick Emma Thomas for our main character as she was a good example of a stereotypical protagonist in a horror-thriller and horror genre'd movie. This was because she had brown long hair and a slim figure as well as being a white British teenager of 17 years old. We wanted our protagonist to look like this because we wanted it to be relatable and similar to our target audience who are of a similar age to our actor. This is like direct address as it is creating similarities between the protagonist and the audience as if they are in this same posit when they are watching this film and to make it relatable as if it could happen to them and they are in danger and give them tension as it is a horror-thriller. Furthermore by making our protagonist a female we thought this was traditional as they are innocent and vulnerable unlike a man as they are stereotypically meant to be strong and dominant and be able to protect themselves and others around them, like family. Therefore we wanted to create a stereotypical role of a female slim protagonist that doesn't really know what is happening and just thinks everything i normal as this will make sympathy for her as she is innocent and vulnerable due to appearance, gender and class.

Our Costume

When looking at costume we wanted a costume that was very typical of a modern teenager as well as something you could maybe expect within a horror-thriller film. Therefore we wanted our protagonist to be wearing something basic and plain. For example leggings, jeans, jumpers, t shirts etc. Furthermore  we also wanted casual plain colours. For example we decided we wanted some kind of white upper garment - like a white jumper or top.

The white jumper below is like the jumper our protagonist wears throughout the opening. We chose this as  jumper can seem 'home'ly' as well as it being a casual piece of wear that is communal worn by teenage girls and women of all ages in modern society. Furthermore we decided we wanted it to be a white jumper as this would represent purity and innocence because of the social connotations and general associations with the colour white. We thought the white would represent innocence and angelic like almost like an angel or a dove.

Furthermore these are the type and style of jeans that our protagonist will be wearing throughout also. We thought this was fitting as she is meant to be represented as just typical female teenager of a modern society and jeans are the most ideal, casual and normal trousers for them to wear. Therefore we also thought this was better than leggings and any pyjamas as pyjamas would show its her house whereas we want to show she is a babysitter and this isn't her own house therefore wearing clothes to go out but as if it is her own household as she is used to babysitting there. Furthermore leggings are associated with more lower class and are too casual. Moreover typical leggings are black and in some low key lighting it is then harder to see her legs and what she is doing. Therefore making us decide that navy blue jeans are the most ideal.

These white jumper and navy blue jeans are what we decided on.

Title Sequence Name Order

While there are numerous variations most opening credits use some variation of the basic order noted within:

• (NAME OF THE STUDIO)

Name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it (Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia, Lions Gate, Universal, Marvel Studios, Dimension, Miramax etc.).

• (NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY)

Name of the production company that actually made the film or name of the investment groups or companies that financed a substantial part of the film (usually credited as "in association with" or "A (studio name) production.").

• (PRODUCER NAME) PRODUCTION or/and (director only) A FILM BY (DIRECTOR NAME)

Director's first credit, often "a film by XY or "a XY film".

• STARRING

Principal actors (sometimes the stars' and director's credits will be reversed, depending on the star's deal with the studio; in other cases, as in the Rodgers and Hammerstein films, or as in all three film versions of Show Boat, or, as in many Disney films, the title of the film will be shown before the names of its actors; sometimes, as in many of Cannon's films, the name(s) of the principal actor(s) will be shown before the name(s) of the producer(s), i.e. "The Cannon Group presents X in a Golan-Globus production of a Y film").

• (FILM'S TITLE)

Name of the film.

• FEATURING

Featured actors.

• CASTING or CASTING BY

Casting director.

• MUSIC or MUSIC COMPOSED BY or ORIGINAL SCORE BY

Composer of music.

• PRODUCTION DESIGN or PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Production designer.

As a variation some of the below may be noted:

• SET DESIGN
• COSTUMES or COSTUMES BY or GOWNS (older movies)
• HAIRDRESSER
• MAKE-UP ARTIST
• SOUND RECORDING (older movies)
• VISUAL EFFECTS DIRECTOR or VISUAL EFFECTS BY

• EDITOR or EDITED BY

Editor.

• DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Director of photography.

• PRODUCER or PRODUCED BY, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

Producers, co-producers, executive producers, 'also produced by' (credited for various reasons according to contracts and personal scrutiny of the principal producer). Often, though, the name of the producer will be the next-to-last opening credit, just before the director's name is shown.

• BASED ON THE BOOK (PLAY, GRAPHIC NOVEL etc.) BY or FROM A PLAY/BOOK BY (older movies)

If based on a book or other literary work.

• BASED ON THE CHARACTERS BY or BASED ON THE CHARACTERS CREATED BY

If based on characters from a book or other media.

• STORY or STORY BY

Person who wrote the story on which the script is based, gets "story by" credit, and the first screenplay credit, unless the script made substantial changes to the story.

• WRITER(S) or WRITTEN BY

Screenplay writers. The Writers Guild of America allows only three writing credits on a feature film, although teams of two are credited as one, separated on the credits by an ampersand ("X & Y"). If each works independently on the script (the most common system), they are separated by an "and". If more than two persons worked on the screenplay, the credits may read something like "screenplay by X & Y and Z and W" X and Y worked as a team, but Z and W worked separately.

• DIRECTOR or DIRECTED BY

Director. The Directors Guild of America usually permits a film to list only one director, even when it is known that two or more worked on it. Exceptions are made in rare cases such as a death, and subsequent replacement of the director mid-production., and for established directing teams such as the Coen brothers.

This information is sourced from Wikipedia's website.

From this research we now know that there is a specific order that we have to introduce the names within the title sequence. This will help us with our final production and post editing as we won't lose marks on not having them in the correct and typical order. However as there are only 5 of us as a team including actors we only need to include the 5 main people in the production of a film. For example We will have it in the order of:

Starring
Editor
Producer
Writer
Director

Our Final Title Typography

We got together and discussed the ten fonts I previously posted of the possible title typographys that we might use for our title. We then settled on the following font: Optimus Princeps. The image below is an example of what our title would look like with this font:

We felt this was the ideal typography four our film opening due to it being a very traditional looking font and not sticking biasedly to one side of the genres. For example if we had a bold, sans serif capitlised font like the following of an action genre:

We wouldn't use the text above because it is a typical font of a action thriller with bold, sans serif and capitalised text. However the smoke kind of rubbed out affect on the text looks good and make it seem distorted and more of a horror. This is something we could use in our own text over the top it to give it the same effect.

Furthermore this is a science-fiction/psychological thriller that uses the same bold, sans serif, capitalised text as the skyfall text above. Furthermore the colour red would represent danger and make it stand out more because it is an eye catching colour. This is not what we want to go for as a look as we want a more mysterious, classic and old fashioned serif font.

The reason why we wanted to choose a font such as 'Optimus Princeps' was because we had looked at previous fonts in horrors and thriller-horrors that had this similar style of old fashioned, classic styled text. 

For example these are some similar horror typography fonts:

Then here are some examples of some more specific horror thriller typography fonts that are very similar to ours which we have based it on:

This is why we wanted this classic, serif, old fashioned style similar to times new roman because it is very reoccurring in horrors and thriller horrors.

Typography For Our Title

Ringbearer

I Still Know

Traveling Typewriter

Major Label

Portmanteau Regular

Cold Coffee

An Unfortunate Event

Bebas Neue

Optimus Princeps

Livia Medium

After looking at other typography in thrillers and horrors we came to the conclusion that we wanted a font with either fine, capitalised, structured serif font or bold and capitalised sans serif font. For example we either wanted a bold sans serif title with white text against plain black background with lots of negative space. Or we wanted to have a more elegant fine serif title that almost resembled the looks of a house name or door number on a house - as the title of the film is 'The House'. Therefore we want to show the references and links between he typography and what we are trying to portray. However some of the problems with some of the fonts above is some of them can tend to be too horrific and lose the thriller side of it. As the task we were originally given was a thriller genre opening to a film and not a horror genre. Therefore we are trying to get a nice mysterious title that has connotations to the two but isn't too much like a horror or a thriller.

We are still yet to discuss the ten fonts that you can see above and see which one we prefer or think is the best for our title typography and why.

Evaluation Questions

Marking Criteria for the Evaluation

Candidates will evaluate their work electronically. This MUST contain an element of audience feedback and may be either integrated with the presentation of the research and planning material or may be presented separately. Where candidates have worked in a group, the evaluation may be presented individually or collectively but the teacher must allocate a mark according the contribution/level of understanding demonstrated by the individual candidate. 

The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 
• Who would be the audience for your media product? 
• How did you attract/address your audience? 
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?  Ideas for the format for the presentation of the evaluation can be found in the Guidance Notes.

Post-Production Realisations

When our group started to take all the shots we have and go through all of them sorting which ones are good and bad to use. After this we put the ones we deem best and place them onto our Premiere Pro timeline. However when we started to cut the shots and place them in order as well as after being edited to fit with each other in time consecutively one after the other we begun to realise that some shots were jumpy and we needed some more shots in between the current ones we have to create more tension instead of there being constant action. For example one of the first shots is a shot of the protagonist sleeping next to the fire on the sofa and then a shot of the baby's room, which then cuts to another shot of her sleeping and then the monitor starts to make noise and it then zooms in on this, but the babysitter is asleep and cannot hear this. We then wanted her to wake up shortly after by the control falling off the sofa by some supernatural or paranormal force. However we put these shots together of the monitor making noise and then the controller falling off the sofa, but we realised that this didn't look right as it cut to quickly between the two pieces of action and we needed some more mysterious shots of something else happening before the controller falls as we all thought it was too soon. However we do not quite know what to put in between these two sections of action. Therefore we now realise that everything isn't as easy as it is planned. Furthermore that when in post-production you can come across shots that don't directly fit into one another. Moreover this happens when the babysitter goes to drink the water but the arm jumps too much as she raises it up to drink. making it look unnatural. Therefore we know we have to shoot more shots and maybe shoot a variety of other things that could be used as fillers to also create mysteriousness withing the opening as it is a horror/thriller which tend just to imply themes rather than actual show and consequently fit into our genre as well as making the opening more natural and flow better overall.

Setting in Horror Openings

The Purge

This film is set on the streets of a friendly neighborhood in America. By having this thriller set around and in houses makes the film more personal to the audience as this could happen to anyone. The idea that the action in mostly set at night time makes the feeling more ominous and eery. When thinking about our horror-thriller opening we think having our setting at night will make a more tense atmosphere for the audience. The costumes in this clip seem to be just everyday clothes, by having every day clothes makes things more realistic.



The conjuring

This film is set within a family home this again makes it more personal to the audience and helps bring more emotion by involving children as children are seen a very innocent and bad things shouldn't happen to them. With the action happening inside it brings the horror into their own house so it allows the



Paranormal Activity

This film is set through cam-corders the whole time, by doing this it looks like your in the lives of the characters, as its there everyday lives being filmed by each other. Most of the film is set within in a home with paranormal activity surrounding them all the time this brings tension to the audience and fear as children are the victims within this film.

Evaluation:
From looking at my group members work I can see the typical settins and scenery of a horror movie title sequence as well as what the surrounding lighting, mise en scene and actual location would be. Therefore it gives us as a group an insight into what our lication should be or what it should look like. As well as what kind of horror side of it we want. As we are doing a thiller horror and not just a horror, meaning it can't be to horrofic and lose the thriller aspect and should have a cross between our research in thriller and this.

Horror/Thriller Decided Name - 'The House'

We finally agreed on a decided name to go along with our title sequence. We all agreed that the name 'The House' was the most fitting due to the fact it is based all around the house and throughout the title sequence it is implied there is a supernatural or paranormal presence within the house also. Furthermore all the shots of and within the house are filmed in a ambiguous and mysterious way to present it as something that builds tension with the way it is filmed and the specific items within the house. For example the mirror, fire and control/tv. Moreover we also thought that to end the title sequence we would have the title right at the end. Therefore we thought that the ending scene could get smaller and then go through a letter 'O' in the title 'THE HOUSE' centered in the middle of the screen.

Second Shoot Evaluation

Our second shoot was a lot more successful compared to our previous first shoot. This was because we knew what our goals were as well as what we had to face. We completed a lot of the work in this shoot, getting a good quarter of the shopting done. Therefore allowing us to put this into the timeline when back in school and clip them down as well as watch them back to evaluate and see if they were good enough.

We had a lot of good shots that we could use which was lucky, however it was alsoo good as it allowed us to notice small things - like shots and mise-en-scene that we might not have noticed before. Therefore now we can add small shits in and remove mise-en-scene we do not want in the view. Furthermore we sometimes lost concerntration in our shoot which slowed us down a lot, consequently if we want to film much more and do and even better job we need to be even more focused.

On the other hand, a part from these minor mistakes we had a lot to be bappy about. As we have now set up the beginning of our opening and we're starting to see how the rest of it will look. Furthermore we have become more experienced and skilled in filming and editing the shots and we can now create better scenes as well as edited together sequences. I am extrememly happy with our geoups position at the moment. We have organised another shoot meet up in a couple of days which we hope to get even more done and add to our timeline of footage.