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Final Opening Sequence - And So It Happened...

Hello examiner, welcome to my blog. Throughout this year of doing media studies I feel I have made significant progress and now have a more detailed understanding of how aspects of media work and I hope that our opening sequence reflects this.

I hope you enjoy watching our final piece and looking at my blog, as you can see there is a label system which should help you navigate your way around my blog.

Thank you!

Here is our opening sequence: 

Evaluation Question 1

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

I have completed a voice over to analyse and explain the first section of our opening sequence.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 3

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

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 6

Media Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 7

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

Analysing Evaluation Questions

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

• This question is asking how our opening sequence reflects real products of a horror genre and what aspects we have used in our own product and how they're effective
• It is also asking what our opening sequence does that other products don't do and why we decided to use this and also the effect of this
• For this question our group are going to do a directors interview over the top of our opening sequence, discussing these aspects

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• This question is asking mainly how our main character fits in with and reflects a specific group in society
• I will also need to explain, in context to our horror genre, why we chose the character we did and why our character is significant, this will show that our character is relatable and isn't specific to an age, gender or subculture
• For this question I will answer it in a animation style video

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

• For this question I need to understand what an institution is, I know that it means what company would show and promote my opening sequence
• The institution needs to be specific in order to fit our target audience and for our genre to fit in with other films being promoted by the company
• I will need to research companies such as Film 4, Netflix, Warner Brothers and YouTube and show how each institution differs and therefore explain which one would be most suitable for our product
• I will answer this question in the form of a poster/information leaflet

4. Who would be your audience for your media product?

• This question is asking me, who specifically would watch and enjoy my product, this could be a specific age, gender, culture or social group. I will also need to explain why a specific group will watch my product and aspects I have included that will appeal to them
• I will answer this question by completing some internet research but also some individual research by asking ranging ages if they would like to watch horror films

5. How did you attract/address your media audience?

• This question is asking how we got an audience to watch our product and what we included within our product that would appeal to our target audience
• I will also need to consider how professional institutions promote their films and therefore gain and audience and replicate their techniques in order to attract an audience for our product
• I will answer this question by carrying out research into our audiences expectations of a horror film and then compare that to our product to see if we have met expectations and therefore people would want to watch it

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

• This question is asking me to identify different types of technology I have used in the process and how it has effected and helped our product
• It is asking what these technologies have shown and taught me, but is also suggesting things I could still improve on in the future
• I will answer this question in the form of a powerpoint presentation which each slide dedicated to an individual technology

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

• This question is asking how my understanding of media has developed and improved throughout my time doing media studies, it is also asking me whether or not I am happy with our full product from the improvements we have made
• I will answer this question in the form of a group discussion with my group so we can evaluate our improvements from our new experience, we will individually talk about specific topics 

Sound

Continuing on from the comments we got from out original sound edit, to progress further with our opening sequence we are now finalising each sound and making each sound precise, along with the volume. We have converted our media and have been watching it closely to find corrections that we need to make, we have found we need to:

• make each footstep quieter
• ensure that each footstep is in sync with when she steps
• make doors opening and slamming more noticeable
• make the rustling in the matchbox louder
• make the girls laughter fade out
• sounds such as the chair and the heartbeat get louder but sounds such as the string and jewellery box get quieter
• place more obvious wind at the beginning
• add a soundtrack on the book 

From looking closely at each section of our opening sequence it is easier to pin point exact changes that need to me made, this has been useful for us as instead of constantly watching it and changing aspects, we know exactly how to finalise our piece. 

Sound - Making Our Own

Sounds that we used were mainly from soundbible and purple planet, but we did have to make some sounds for ourselves that we thought would fit better than ones we had downloaded from the internet.

• To make specific sounds such as the ticking clock, we went into a silent room and recorded the clock:

• Other sounds such as the heartbeat were made from one member of our group tapping a cardboard box.
• As we needed footsteps to match up with what is happening during the sequence, we filmed them ourselves by our main character walking on various textures in sync to what is happening in the opening sequence.
• The voice over was also recorded in a silent room by our friend
• Squeaky stairs and doors were made using creaky stairs at school and doors we each had at home, from us all doing this we compared the best sound and used that one.

From us making some of our own sounds it helps for us to be more involved in the soundtrack of our opening sequence and allows better fits as it some of our sounds fit the action better than generic sounds from the internet.

Rough Sound Edit

This is a rough sound edit of our opening sequence, all of the sounds are in correct places and match up to the events happening within the sequence.

From this and from comments from our teacher, we need to now concentrate on the volume of sounds as footsteps for example are too loud compared to other sounds. Also, in the beginning as well as the birds in the background we are going to add more audible wind to empathise that she is isolated and separated from society and reality in an unknown place. As well as this, we are going to add a soundtrack ontop of the book as apart from the page turning it is silent, a soundtrack will help build up the tension and show to the audience that something isnt right and that something is getting closer to her, but we dont know what.

The comments we have recieved have been very useful as it means that from this we can now finalise the sound and are close to finishing.

Drafting/Scripting - Voice Over

As we started to add sound to our opening sequence, we decided to add a voice over on top of the 360 around our main character at the beginning. This helps to give our audience an insight into our charcters thoughts and feelings while she is looking back on the events later to come in our opening sequence.

We thought this would be effective as it helps to establish our storyline and already gives the impression of a horror genre as from what is said, the audience can  conclude that something eerie and shocking has happened. It also gives a further insight into our main character and her reasons for being at the warehouse alone, this is emphasised by her costume and the fact she is carrying a camera.

This is the script for our voice over that we filmed one of our peers saying in a silent room:

Rough Edit

Here is the rough edit of our opening sequence, since making this our group have decided to get rid of parts of the sequence, such as the close up of the dolls face as we feel is doesn't fit and the colour and contrast looks too superficial comparing it to the rest of the film. Also we have taken away one shot as our character walks into the building, as the side angle doesn't flow with the rest of the clips during that scene. Also, from watching this we have decided to re film the ballerina to just have it spinning in a single shot without the candle next to it, as we feel it will look better.

Making a rough edit has been useful as it shows that we need to re film the book pages as they are diffcult to see in the light and it shows that our story does make sense and can be followed which will help appeal to our target audience.

From this we now need to finalise the individual clips and their placement to ensure that our opening sequence flows effectively and we need to begin to add sound to our piece to make it look real and professional.

Before adding sound we have created a sound list, these are sounds we can download off of the internet and need to create for ourselves:

• voice over
• footsteps-gravel, concrete, stairs
• doors opening and closing
• jewellery box music
• young girl laughing
• wind, birds, outside noises
• lighting a match
• book pages turning
• chair moving out
• whispering
• heart beat
• clock ticking
• soundtrack

These are the main sound effects that we will need to create the horror genre and a spooky atmosphere, as we begin to create the sound edit we may need to add additional sounds to heighten the effect. 

Production - Filming

This is a time lapse from our filming, I think this is useful as it shows the different conditions we tried to expand our production, as you can see we filmed in the dark using tourches and candles to create the dark and creepy atmosphere we hope to create. We constantly moved around the office and downstairs and also outside, we experimented with different shots and angles and distances to try and make our production look as best as it possibly could. 

Moving on from filming, we need to begin to produce a rough edit of our opening sequence, to make sure all of our clips flow together to form a story and to see whether or not we need to go back to our location to film additional pieces that we might have missed over the days filming. 

Location

After discussing various locations, we decided on a workshop/warehouse that was easily accessible for us to use and that we could use whenever we needed it. We did think of alternative locations such as the woods or a dark alley, so that a sense of something dark and mysterious would be created.

Here are a few pictures of our location, I think our location is effective as it is isolated, dark, the door being seen from the window helps to give a sense of someone being watched or being easily able to get inside, the fact the stairs look as if they lead to no where makes it seem mysterious and eerie as you don't know what to expect in the office. But the office is effective as it looks ordinary which makes what goes on in there even more suspicious and strange.

Props

Due to our character being a reporter finding a book in an abandoned and creepy warehouse, we decided on a prop list:

• Book-with newspaper articles
• Table with a chair
• Filing cabinet
• Candles
• Jewellery box
• Creepy dolls (childrens toys)
• Rocking horse

As our location is a warehouse, items such as a filing cabinet, chair and table are already at the location and props such as dolls, candles, jewellery box and rocking horse are props that we already own within the group which we will take to the location and set up.

For the book we wanted an old leather book, so we looked on the internet and ordered one that we liked, we planned to burn and coffee stain the pages in order to make them look older and that the collection of articles have been building up for years. 

This is what arrived: 

As you can see from the photo the book is slightly smaller than we anticipated and we therefore can't use it for the main prop for our opening sequence as it isn't big enough. 

We decided to make our own using card and material found at our school, we found newspaper articles online and coffee stained and ripped the pages to make the main prop for our sequence. 

Here it is:

Titles

As part of the brief for our main task is to include titles, the titles in our opening sequence have been incorporated into the main prop of the book. This is effective as they don't look fake or edited in and I think that they blend in well to what is happening within the sequence.

Here is an example, as you can see it is incorporated into the newspaper articles and looks like it is apart of the opening sequence:

Costume

In our opening sequence, the main character is a female reporter, in order to effectively present this we researched into the typical clothes and props that a reporter would have. We decided that a typical, old fashioned reporter would wear a brown coat and carry a camera.

From our research, we found costume similar to what we wanted as this is what our female character looked like:

Actors/Casting

We wanted a young, teenage character so that our audience would be able to relate to our character and have a understanding of what she could potentially be going through.

Although we used a member of our group for our main character, we did consider other people, but agreed on Jess. This is because she is within our target audience range, she was dressed in minimal make up and apart from the reporters coat, looked like a typical girl. This is effective as by using a normal teenage girl, it heightens the goings on within the opening sequence, making her seem isolated and out of place, but also vulnerable which allows the audience to form a liking and connection with her.

Research into Opening Sequences

As well as looking into opening sequences of horror films, since our opening sequence includes a book that will allow us to incorporate and show our titles, I found that clips from Harry Potter also help to show the effect we hope to achieve or have had inspiration from in our own sequence.

At 57 seconds on the clip, the scene changes into a newpaper format, we hope to achieve something like that where the audience is within the book and emerced in what is written, this could hope to connect the audience to the storyline and help to make it more impactful and creepy as the audience is involved. I like this style of filimg as it is inventive but is also effective at getting across emotions to the audience with the pace and sharpness of the camera shots, we hope to use slow shots that get increasingly faster to show a dramatic sense as something is getting closer and coming towards the main character in our opening sequence. 

Time Management

After completing all of our production meetings, before we started to film, we made a time management chart. This helped us to work to indivudal deadlines to ensure that we finished our product on time, but also had some time left over to check over our work and to make improvements if necessary, this will allow us to be completely happy with our finished piece.

As you can see the majority of the time we have planned for is editing, as we anticipate that it will take a long period of time to ensure all of our clips flow effectively, that our story makes sense and also that all appropriate sounds have been included and sound realistic.

We also allowed ourself 5 weeks to plan, this is useful as it means that when it comes to filming we can complete it quickly and effectively as all members of our group have a detailed and precise understanding of our storyline and also what shots and angles we need to get.

Time management is an important factor of our whole production as it means that we will be able to finish everything we need to and can stay organised, this will help us finish our opening sequence to the best of our ability.

Storyboard

As well as our group drawing a storyboard, I researched and decided to look at animated storyboarding as was able to create one myself, this helped to further enhance my understanding of our sequence and see it another visual way.

The website I used to make this animated storyboard was http://www.toondoo.com/

Initial Idea: Shot List

Before setting out to film our opening sequence our group made an initial shot list, which would help us to know what we wanted to get before filming, also because of opening sequence is of a horror genre our camera shots and angles had to be appropriate to suit this genre.

This is the shot list we made:

• 360 around our main character, to give an introduction to our character and to put emphasis on her facial expressions and her isolation
• Close ups, to heighten the abnormal objects within the warehouse
• High angle shot, to give the sense she is being watched
• Pan, to show how jumpy and scared she is as she knows she shouldn't be there
• Point of view
• Over the shoulder
• Medium shots
• Long shot, when she is looking down from the room to show how she isn't alone

Story Board

Before we started filming, our group created a storyboard, this was effective in helping us to gain a better understanding of our story but to also see it visually. This helped us while filming as it meant we knew exactly what we wanted to get, in terms of each clip and gave us a better idea of camera shots and angles to portray emotions within each scene and section of our opening sequence.

This also helped to give us a more detailed plan of a shotlist as we decided to initially use:

• pan/360
• close up
• medium shots
• extreme close ups
• point of view 
• over the shoulder shots
• high angle

We hope that by using these shots it will create an intense, isolated but also confined sense that she is being watched, which will heighten our horror genre sequence. 

Pre Production Meeting Three

As shown in the picture, we have decided on what aspects of our storyline should go into each scene, this helps us to break down filming into more manageable parts and gives us an easier idea of what different things we need to film. This should help to make editing easier as we will have a good idea of how the clips should flow to make an effective horror opening sequence.

From the three pre production meetings, our groups is prepared to film our opening sequence.

Because our initial deadline for our production is the 13th February, our group aim to finish filming by the 13th January which gives us a month to begin editing. From our production meetings we have decided that we will spend 2 days filming, on the first day we will film the reporter walking into the building, up the stairs and looking around. On our second day we will film the reporter finding the book, looking through it and the some unknown being entering the room with her. As we have spent time planning we can now effectively manage our time so that we have enough time to edit.  

Pre Production Meeting Two

In our groups second meeting, we began to think about locations, from our pitch we decided we wanted either a creepy, abandoned house or warehouse or a dark forest. From our first meeting and our new idea, it would be best to find a house or warehouse for our opening sequence, we decided on a workshop as it was accessible for our group but was also dark with empty rooms where we could create a scene that would fit our genre. 

As well as location, we thought about props, as a book is the basis of our idea we needed to find and order or make our own book. The props we thought of fit the horror theme but also with the ideas that will fit into the book, such as the child like toys which can be presented to look scary in a dark and mysterious situation, this is why we thought they would be effective.

We also began to think about sound effects as we could begin to produce some of our own while we were at our filming location, the sound effects link to the props and also to the location, as the warehouse is empty and sound effects should help to heighten the fear within the opening sequence. 

In our third meeting, we will start to determine scenes to break down our filming to make it more manageable and easier to begin when we get to our location. 

Pre Production Meeting One

In our groups first pre production meeting, we began to discuss new ideas for our opening sequence as from our pitch we were asked how we would make our idea more original from other horror films that already exist. 

As a starting point we thought of a list of single ideas and props that would fit a horror genre and then thought how we would connect the ideas in order to make a opening sequence. 

From our first meeting, our group has established a main idea consisting of a femal character walking into an abandoned and old building who finds a book with old newspaper reports and pictures in it, this should create a mysterious and eerie atmosphere as something clearly isn'r right with the situation she is in.

Also, we have answered another question we were given as a result of our pitch, to incorporate our titles we have decided to use the book as the basis of the titles as well as the storyline, with the titles incorporated into the articles and pictures. 

In our next pre production meeting, location, props, costume, actors and sound effects needed will be considered to give a clearer plan for when we go into production and filming. 

Individual Research

I completed some individual research into the potential audience of our horror opening sequence, I decided to post on twitter to see who and how many people like horror films and would watch horror films. 

As twitter is mainly used by people aged 13-25, this helps to give an insight to the age range that would watch horror films. As you can see 8 people in a short space of time said that they liked horror films, suggesting that our target audience should be for teenagers and young adults. As I mainly follow people on twitter with similar interests and with similar age group, it means that I can confidently say that from my research that an appropriate target audience for our product would be around 13-25.

This was important research to carry out as it gave me a better understanding of our target audience and gave new research and figures, as this was research I carried out it means that through posting our opening sequence on social media, we could potentially have a significant audience. 

Further Audience Research

I have done further research into the potential target audience of horror films, I found http://www.slideshare.net/mattmosey1/my-target-audiance was a useful website into the horror genre and its target audience.

From this it can be concluded that the target age for our opening sequence should be teenagers and young adults, this has been effective in confirming what my group already thought, it will now help us to plan a specific storyline that will be understandable and effective and dramatic enough to suit our target audience.

This research was interesting to read as I didn't have any preconcieved stereotypes for the horror genre, although this research says that men are more likely to watch horror films, I disagree. I think this genre can fit to either gender and give the same effect to both male and female audiences. We will need to ensure that our storyline is non biased to gender and it would be appropriate for both genders and be something that both genders would enjoy.

Now that I have a better idea of our target audience, our storyline can now be based around this, with props, setting and a script that is impactful and creepy to give the audience the "rush" and suspense that they expect when watching a horror film. 

Opening Sequences - Horror Films

While we are filming for our opening sequence, I have completed more research into other opening sequences in the horror genre to help develop my understanding of typical conventions of a horror film.

The first sequence I looked at was 'The Conjuring', what I found was:

• Voice Over- at the beginning, this is effective as it gives the reader ncssary information to understand what is going on in the scene, in this case it helps to involve the audience into the event and allow them to feel involved within the meeting. This sense of involvement helps to capture the audiences attention and heighten the creepy goings on with the doll.
• The close up of the eye suggests that the audience are also being watched by Annabelle and shows that there is a constant ghostly presence.
• The soundtrack is fast and sharp which helps to create tension, music being a fast pace gives the sense that something is coming or getting closer, which helps to introduce fear to the audience.

The second sequence I looked at was 'Sinister', what i ofund was:

• The long shot of the tree and the four people and the slow movement of them being pulled up the tree empathises their death and their cruel death, it also suggests that something isnt quite right as they're being hanged, it gives a sense of suffering which therefore makes the sequence more dramatic.
• There is eerie and slow paced, quiet music presents a more relaxed theme which contasts with the actions happening on screen. The quiet music implies that they are alone but as they are being raised it gives the impression that something is there with them, making it seem more creepy and eerie.

The final sequence I looked at was 'The Woman in Black', what I found was:

• Close ups of the girls faces and their toys give the impression that something is in the room with them, watching them.
• The use of childlike, innocent music gives a sweet and normal sense but does imply a eerie atmosphere, as the girls walk towards the window it gets faster and more intense, making the girls actions even more impactful.
• Props- the dolls, teapot and cups in the girls room shows them as being normal girls, which makes the audience question their intentions for their actions.
• The slow cutting rate as the girls walk up to window, could imply their reluctance to go to the window, suggesting that something is pulling them or forcing them do go there.
• finally, the over the shoulder and the establishing shot where the audience can see the whole room, a shadow is in the bottom right hand corner, showing that something isnt right and something was actually in the room with them, creating tension for the audience and asking questions as to what actually happened. The use of shadows is effective as the audiences imagination will take over and due to the unknown they will fill in what they think is the being, making the sequence seem more scary. 

Target Audience

As our groups main idea for our opening sequence was to do a horror sequence, I have looked on the internet at research into the popularity of the horror genre compared to other genres.

From the table the horror genre only has a 3% share with audiences and is the 7th popular genre but, most importantly it is still a popular and successful genre. This is because although it is popular it is more niche, whereas comedy and adventure films suit the majority of the population. This research has been helpful in determining whether or not it would be a good idea to create a horror opening sequence, I think that the target audience would fit in with teenagers and young adults and I think that is who we will need to aim our story at. 

PITCH

This is our groups inital ideas for our opening sequence, we presented this infront of our class and we were then asked the following questions:

• How will we incorporate titles into our scene? Which we answered, as we are planning to incorporate the titles into the props that we will be using, instead of editing then in later.
• Also we were asked how we would make our idea different and more original? From this our group decided on a new idea which we think will work better.

From these questions we were able to think of a new idea that our group feel will give the opportunity for us to be creative with but also that we are all confident on and understand our idea.We will now begin production meetings to finalise our story, organise propsw, characters, a location and also the sound effects and camera angles we will use within our opening sequence. 

Pitch