Editing in class

Today during our media lesson we decided to edit our film. Above is a screen shot of this happening.

When editing we noticed that the first scenes of our film (displayed above) was not shot steady, so we will be re-filming parts of these scenes so that it looks a lot better. Also, we noticed that the scene did not flow together, as when the main character is passed the 'lost cat' poster, in the next scene the paper was the other way round. So when re-filming we will take in mind all of these things. We also decided on this scene to add in close ups of the father character picking up the posters, so that there is emphasis on what the posters is about (the lost cat).

Changes of the 'horror' characters and props

In our film we have changed the character that is meant to be scary. Originally we were going to have zombie characters, but we realised with this it would not look like a real film as we do not have the special effects/ makeup to produce a realistic zombie character.
Instead we stayed with the idea of the victim coming across a scary character and being followed and attacked, but instead we changed this to just a person with a knife that cannot be seen clearly except just before the title 'STALKED' is shown at the beginning of the film, but again in this shot we didn't want the stalking character to be clearly shown just to make the film more tense and mysterious, as horror films are.

 

Above are images displaying the stalker characters clothing. We chose to have this character in a Parker coat with the hood up, as this adds to the mystery of who is following the victim as it cannot be seen whether this character is male/ female. As most of our shots of the stalker character are either far away or from behind, this also adds to the mysterious feeling as it cannot be seen properly who this is. As the jeans and shoes could belong to either a male or female character, this also adds to the mystery of the film for the audience, as they cannot be sure who it is at all, making this character more feared as they could be any of the characters in the rest of the film but disguised to attack other people.
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As we have changed our film location, we decided to rid of the tortch prop as it wasn't nessicary because we now have enough light to work with and for the characters to be visible. We instead are using a knife to show why the victim character is afraid of the stalker. We use a close up shot of this prop to highlight its importance in our film, as this gives across what genre our film is. We did not show this knife in the light as it isn't a real knife, so to give across the idea that it is real we showed it in the dark, giving a more realistic look to it.

 

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We also decided to add into our film a phone conversation to clearly highlight what the victim character is doing (looking for her cat). We had a close up of the phone recieving a call to show its importance in the film. Below displays the screen shots of our phone conversation scenes (the first screen shot of the victims father on the phone, the second screen shot displaying the close up of the phone going off so that the focus is on the fact that this is happening.)

Why we changed the location

In our first attempt of filming we realised by using a torch in the dark doesn't work as effectively as we thought because of the fact that the camera couldn't focus well in this low amount of dark, so we decided to change location to somewhere with more lighting.
Also, as the trees etc to show the rural setting cannot be seen, this eliminates the rural setting idea and the feeling of loneliness and the fact that the character cannot be saved. By changing the setting to on the bridge this gives the idea of loneliness as nobody is around, and also trees etc can be seen, giving a rural and lonely feel as we originally intended.

First attempt of filming

This is my group and I's first attempt of filming in our location. As the above is affective for creating fear in the beginning of the film, as it is a silohuette of the character who is going to attack the main character. The silohuette is created by using the light from a train station nearby. By using this as the light source this doesn't have the rural and abandoned affect that we originally intended to create, to give off the idea that the main character is away from any people who could save her from this other character.

Animatic

Above is the animatic of our storyboard of what is going to happen in our filming. By producing this it clearly shows what order our shots are going to be in and almost shows what our actual film beginning is going to look like.

Props

• The main prop that we will be using is a torch. This is key to the film as it creates a light source in the dark when we are filming. By having a torch present this makes the film more convincing, as the main character would not realistically be going into the woods in the dark without on.

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• Another prop we will be using is a newspaper. This will be used when the victim and her father are having conversation. By including this prop this adds a relaxed feel to the scene, and makes it more realistic also. If the two characters were sitting next to one another just speaking straight to eachother with no interactions, this would not be realistic as this would not happen in real life. We could have had the father character on his phone for example texting, or watching television, but this gives across the feeling of lack of concentration and not really listening to what's being said, showing there is no importance in the conversation. By having the newspaper there, it shows that the father character was reading before but now has stopped to listen to Lucy, the victim character.

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• Above is a screen shot of another prop we are going to use - the lost cat poster. This prop clearly shows to the audience what exactly is happening in the film, the storyline of it all. It shows why the victim character is going out at night, to look for her lost cat, otherwise just going for a walk at night seems unreasonable as danger is likely to occur.
• By using this prop, it also gives a feeling of innocense to the victim character, as having her going to look for a cat this has quite feminine traits so this gives a stereotypical vunerable female feel to this character.

Characters

The main character is Lucy who is the ''victim'' of the attack in the first two minutes of the film (By including an attack straight away this makes it clear to the audience the film is full of action and terror). By having an average looking character as victim, this gives the audience the idea that anybody could be attacked by the creature in this film. Also, by casting this ''victim'' character as a woman, this stays to the stereotype in horror films of women being attacked rather than men, as they can't fight off the creature as they are defenceless. Also by casting this character of someone in their teens, this gives the idea that she is innocent, once again ensuring the audience knows that anyone could be attacked.

Above displays the costume of the victim character, Lucy. By wearing casual clothing her age is clearly shown, as she is not shown in working clothes such as a skirt and blouse etc, showing her young age. As these clothes are showing a slight fashion sense, this shows how the character is in her teenage years, showing she is vunerable and is likely to be attacked in this film.

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This character is the father of Lucy and is included in a small part of the film which outlines the storyline of Lucy's cat being lost. The hair of this character will be gelled to the side to give a 'smart' look to the father character. This character will also be wearing smart clothing to clearly show the audience this is the father character. This character will also be reading a newspaper, as this is a stereotypical thing for a father character to be doing in the evening.



The above images display the costume of the victims dad. By wearing casual clothes this shows that this character isn't going out to work at this time (as it's late) and will be staying at home for the time that the victim, Lucy, goes out. This shows that the father character will not be out around this time so the victim character doesn't have a chance of being saved.

Pictures inspiring our film beginning

For our film beginning we want the mysterious character to be hidden in some way. The Grudge films affectively show this by hiding the Grudge in different ways. For example by having her unfocused, or simply by the lighting. Another aspect of the Grudge character is the fact that she has hair to hide her face, therefore making her a more mysterious character as you can't clearly see who she is.




The shot below is from 28 Weeks Later. This screen shots shows another affective way of making a character mysterious - by having them hiding/ looking through a gap. This makes the viewer unsure of who they are, but the eyes make the viewer clearly see that this character is one of the 'horror' characters in the film. In consideration of how the eyes are affective in this way, we would have to produce affective make-up to show the audience this is the horror character if we showed them hiding in this way, so we have decided not to use this way of making the character more mysterious.

Ideas for film

For our film we came up with the idea of changing our story board slightly, this is to develop our film. We thought that by changing this it would make the film beginning more scary, showing the genre of the film better.
We decided to change the shots to the ones below:

• Establishing shot of house

(Panning to show the whole road to set the scene)

• Long shot of characters having conversation in a room inside the house

(The conversation will consist of something like this:
Dad character: "So you going to look for Shandy"
Main character: "Yeah, where are the posters?"
Dad character: "Erm... over here" (hands posters)
Main character: "Bye Dad")

• Low angle panning shot of main characters feet walking
• Zooming medium shot of 'LOST CAT' poster being put up
• Low angle panning shot of main characters feet walking
• Long shot/ over the shoulder shot of main character walking into the woods
• Quick shots of - rustling hedge/light of torch/close up of eyes showing fear
• Point of view shot of the feet and then looking away
• Close up of eyes
• Point of view shot of torch going around the woods
• Close up of eyes
• More quick shots to show the fear of the main character clearly. 

Where music will be placed in our film

For our film we will be using non copyright music.

This music will be applied to the opening titles (text over a black background), and it will be a soundbridge onto the first scene, the main character walking through the street. The music will be non diagetic, meaning the characters cannot hear it but the audience can. It slowly fade out for the diagetic sound of shoes to be heard by the audience.

Music will also be applied to the shot where the main character is walking once again, to the woods.

Conclusion of questionnaire

By producing a questionnaire we can see what type of audiences would want to watch our type of film.
From our graphs we can see men prefer horror films over women. Also our graphs show the fact that people would prefer the age certificate to be 15 rather than 18, which shows how a younger audience enjoy horror films and would prefer to be able to see them in the cinema.

Charts on questions

Questionnaire on horror film audiences

By asking the below questions, it will become apparent to us what type of audience will want to watch our genre of film.

Questions

Q1 What minimum age do you think the certificate of horror films should be? 

15

18

Q2 Do you enjoy horror films, or would you prefer to watch something else? (Female)

Enjoy horror films

Prefer something else

Q3 Do you enjoy horror films, or would you prefer to watch something else? (Male)

Enjoy horror films 

Prefer something else

    

Conclusion of audience profiling

In conclusion, by looking at my audience profiling below it is clear certain people watch horror films. So this creates a target audience for my group and I.
The research showed that for all of the films:

Gender

•  The percentage of men watching horror films was higher than the percentage of women 

Age

• The highest percentage of viewers was the age bracket of 15-24
• The second highest percentage of viewers was the age bracket of 25-34
• This shows how horror films are directed at young adults/adults. 

Audience Profiling - 28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later Audience Profiling

• The image above clearly shows the percentage of men watching this film is higher than women (56% male, 44% female)
• The image above shows how the age bracket with the highest percentage of viewers for this film is 15-24, and the second highest percentage is 25-34.

Audience Profiling - Creep

Creep Audience Profiling

• The image above clearly shows mostly men watched this horror film (67% men, 33% female)
• The image above shows the highest percentage of people who watch the film are in the age bracket of 15-24, similar to the highest percentage of audience age for Silent Hill.
• Also, the same second highest age bracket is 25-34, similar to Silent Hill once again.

Audience Profiling - Silent Hill

Silent Hill Audience Profiling

• The image above clearly shows mostly men watched this horror film (68% men, 32% women).
• The image above also shows how the highest number of viewers in the age category consists of the age bracket of 15-24. The second highest percentage age bracket is 25-34, showing how this horror film appealed to young adults, and not so much anyone older. Statistics cannot be shown for anyone younger than 15 because of the certificate on the film.
• This gives my group and I a good idea of who would want to watch our film, and who our target audience is.

Audiences for horror films

Target audience for horror films:

• For horror films, there isn't a specific gender for the target audience. This is because both male and female enjoy watching horror films, though it may be argued men enjoy it more, as stereotypically women are scared of many of the scenes.
• Horror films don't have a specific target audience in regional target audiences, or ethnicity, as anyone can watch them and enjoy them.
• Horror films will be aimed at an young adult/ adult audience, as scenes will be too horrific for young children, which is usually stated on the back of films, along with the age rating. For many horror films the age rating is 18, as the producers recognise their type of film will scare younger viewers.
• All of the above points will be shown and proven in my Audience Profiling (above).

Certificates on Horror Films

• An example of the age limit on horror films is Paranormal Activity. This film has a certificate of 15. By choosing the certificate for this film to be 15 means that more money can be made, as there is now a larger target audience. So if the film can be risked to be certificate 15 instead of 18, it is effective.
• Paranormal Activity 2 is also rated a 15 once again, even though it has been commented on, stating that it is a lot more scary than the first film, it's still a certificate 15. Again, this is effective as more money can be made with the wider target audience.

                                                                      

Some people may question why anybody would want to watch a horror film, below is a quote from a website giving ideas as to why this is:

" Some studies suggest that the real draw to scary movies is the feeling of relief when they are over.

Other research, especially a 2007 study conducted by Eduardo Andrade and Joel B. Cohen, argues that the reason people like watching scary movies is that they are a way to experience both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. At the same time negative and sometimes absolutely horrific images play across the screen, the person watching the film is also experiencing positive emotions. This dual emotional state may reinforce the need to continue to watch horror films since it is an instance where it is acceptable to feel in two contrary states. "

Analysis of Opening Credits

• There are two different types of opening credits. The first is credits on a plain background, and the second is having the credits over the top of the opening scenes of the film. Both of these types are effective.
• Having the credits on a plain background  (for example a black background with white text for the credits) is effective as instead of being distracted by the opening scenes of the film, the viewer will be able to focus on the credits, noticing who the directors, actors etc. are.
• Having the credits over the top of the opening scenes is effective as then the audience will not get bored of watching the credits, and will straight away be able to view the film. Though the negative side of this is the fact that the viewer will not notice who the directors, actors etc. are, they will be more interested in the film itself.

An example of credits on a plain background is The Grudge.

• This opening clearly shows how effective it is to use a plain background with text over the top for the credits, as the focus is on the credits, instead of being distracted by the film on screen when using the credits over the top of the opening scenes idea.
• Also, what is effective about the opening of The Grudge is that the text is edited in a way so it looks like hair is moving over it, relating to the character in the film.
• The colouring of red is chosen to relate to the killings in this film. This would be a good idea to use for our film credits, as it then shows a relation to the film and makes it interesting, already showing to the audience that this film will be scary. The credits are also quite mysterious, in the way that the audience doesn't know what is going to happen, as there is a lot of hair affects being shown, and a sudden hand print over the screen. But the colour red obviously shows it is something negative.
• At 2:55 there is the title of the film, but also with a black to red gradient as the background, this is effective once again as there is emphasis on the colour red, but now also black, which is seen as a negative colour, giving the audience something bad is going to happen.
• This film also shows once again how by using the colour red is effective in showing fear, and making the audience feel tense even before they have watched it. This is shown by at the beginning of the film, text is used to create fear. Also, words are left behind in red font. Words such as "curse" and "death" are in red, highlighting this is what the film is going to be about. By using this idea, it gives away what the film is about, but doesn't say who are the characters or what is causing all of the deaths.

An example of credits over the top of the opening scenes of the film is The Ring.

• This clearly shows how by using credits over the top of the opening of a film, the viewer will not get bored. But it also clearly shows the fact that the credits aren't noticeable, as the happenings in the scene distracts the viewers eye away from these.

Script Ideas

The only dialogue in the opening of our film will be when the main character is talking to a parent, discussing if she is going to look for her lost cat.


For example, the dialogue could consist of:


(The main character comes through door)
Parent: Is that you Lucy?
Lucy(main character): Yeah
Parent: Are you going to look for ____?     (Cats name)
Lucy: Yeah, in a minute
(Main character is seen getting coat)
Lucy: Bye
Parent: Bye




The beginning of our film will not have a lot of dialogue, this is so the audience cannot be certain as to what is going on, or what is going to happen. Meaning that tension is built up, which is effective in horror films.