WELCOME!

An Introduction to Flick Trick 

Welcome to AS Media Team: Flick Trick's blog. On this blog you will find the process that we ventured on in creating our 2 minute horror film opening 'Ten'. 

We categorised the blog into 6 sections; Preliminary, Research, Planning, Production, Editing and Evaluation, which can be navigated using the contents tab on the top left of our blog. This way every post that we have created is ordered in a way that shows our progress and development towards our finished product. 

By Alexandra Gibson

Ten: Final Cut

The Final Cut 

Evaluation Question 1

How We Challenged/Followed Conventions of Horror 

We found when studying and researching successful horror films, that certain aspects were used to build suspense, including music, antagonists and unnerving locations. As we chose to follow the conventions of horror, we became highly influenced by the films that we studied. For instance the music in Jaws - single tones, sharp notes, the sound of violins, all compiled to create one of the most suspenseful pieces of music in a motion picture. This influence is evident in our original score. Also the  antagonist in Psycho, during the infamous 'Show Scene' is only seen through shadow. In our piece our antagonist is only seen as a black figure, allowing a sense of ambiguity and the unknown, which we believed added to the overall suspense of the piece. Our location of a park or 'A Safe Place' was inspired by horror movies featured in said safe places such as the hotel in 'The Shining' or the homes used in 'Paranormal Activity'.  

By Alexandra Gibson, Emili Hone, Melissa Owen and Harry Crotty

Evaluation Question 3

What type of Media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

Above is a video demonstrating some of our choices as to what media institution might represent our film opening. 
We wanted to find a reputable film studio that would popularly distribute our film. As we researched we found that New Line Cinema, and Paramount Pictures would be two possibilities to associate with our film, however for two juxtaposing reasons. New Line Cinema has produced franchises, and some of the biggest horror films, and would be able to distribute the film to a wider audience. A common misconception is that because the film is low budget, only a small institution would be able to distribute it appropriately. However when researching I found that production conglomerate Paramount Pictures distributed Paranormal Activity, which had an extremely low budget of only $15,000 and no well known actors attached to the project, despite this it has developed into one of the biggest horror motion picture franchises. Therefore it is not unrealistic to select New Line Cinema or Paramount to be attached to our film. Such big studios producing low budget films with unknown actors, would be beneficial to the reality and believability of the film, therefore making the experience all the more terrifying for an audience. 

However as our film is strictly British another film studio that would distribute our film could be Momentum Pictures, who distributed 'The Woman In Black' and 'Insidious'. 

By Alexandra Gibson

First Cut

First Cut of 'Ten'

We watched out first cut with the rest of our media class, and received a lot of constructive feedback, and were able to continue improving our film opening using these criticisms. For instance, some digetic sounds were too loud, and her vocal was too quiet, so we were able to go back and edit this to make the levels correct.

This first cut was also posted to youtube, twitter and facebook where friends and family gave there feedback also. We gained a lot of praise and we gained the confidence and determination to keep improving it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVHmeo5fbd8

Evaluation Questionnaire

TEN

1.     Who do you think our target audience is?

2.     Are you given a sense of the narrative?

3.     Do you think the film opening is specific to the horror genre? If no, state why. If yes, how?

4.     Anything that you dislike? What?

5.     Do you think that the music is appropriate to the opening?

Some of our feeback

1.      Who do you think our target audience is?

Teenagers, male and female (16 years-24 years)

 2.      Are you given a sense of the narrative?

You are given a vague sense of the narrative, but the vagueness is effective

      3.      Do you think that the film opening is specific to the horror genre? If no, state why. If yes,  how?

      Yes, it is specific to the horror genre as the music increases tension throughout and the setting of the opening is a stereotypical setting for a horror movie-the woods.

     4.      Anything you dislike? What?

     The ominousness of the female character as the audience is not given a sense of her character

    5.      Do you think that the music is appropriate to the opening?

     Yes- the music helps to build tension

Recording of the music

                    Recording Our Music 

When the time came to add sound to our movie opening, we began by discussing the kind of sound that would fit well with our piece. Sound is key for building tension, however in our piece our climax is built more from the fast pace of the action, rather than intricate soundtrack. Therefore we decided our sound shouldn't be too complex. I played around with the keyboard settings on Garage Band, this allowed us access to a range of sounds that we could use to create our suitable musical score. Our inspiration had mainly come from musical scores using striking strings such as the theme tunes of 'Psycho' and 'Jaws'. Both pieces of music use single notes at fast tempo's to build tension. Using single, repetitive notes would prove effective in our piece, it wasn't too complex seeing as we were beginners using Garage Band. 

Our particular piece of music consisted of Orchestral Strings, repetitive C note in a low octave, that progressed to a repetitive D. We chose to change the note halfway through so that it wasn't noticeably tedious. We also increased the intensity of the track and layered another string sound when the lead male, discovers the hooded figure, as it is a climatic moment in our film opening. 

Garage Band - The recording process using the keyboard and Orchestral Strings.



By Alexandra Gibson

Editing

Editing Process In 10 Steps

1) We started by importing all of our footage into iMovie.
2) We ordered the raw footage into chronological order according to our storyboard.
3) We began editing the footage into order. We cropped and cut each clip to make sure that the continuity was correct, and was pleasing to watch and added a blue/green tinge colour over-lay.
4) We removed all sound from every clip as we wanted to record our own foley sounds and dialogue to get the best quality possible in our finished piece.
4) Once the footage was roughly edited together we began adding titles, including our production name and logo.
5) We began refining the footage, and cropping down clips in order to improve the fast pace of the piece.
6) We imported the foley sounds that we had recorded (See 'Foley Sound' post) and layered them over the top of our footage.
7) We then began recording our music using Garage Band (See 'Recording Our Music' post).
8) Once the soundtrack was done we recorded the separate dialogue with our actress, Lily, and layered that in sync with the footage.
9) We showed our rough cut to a group of our peers for feedback, and uploaded it to various social media sites. (See 'What Have We Learned About Technology?' post)
10) Finally we took into consideration the feedback we had from our first cut and made final improvements which included, more titling, refining clips, and adjusting sound levels.

Emili and Alexandra editing

By Alexandra Gibson

Foley Sound Recording

Foley Sound Experiment

We decided that the wind on our footage was too harsh, therefore we needed to rerecord some natural outdoor noise including slight wind, birds ect in order to fill in the gaps with no dialogue. As we stripped all clips of their sound, we needed to film Foley sounds that sounded like swings, as well as rerecord our actress’s dialogue. Here is a video montage of the Foley sounds that we recorded:

We intend on using the sounds we recorded in our film opening.

By Emili Hone and Alexandra Gibson

 

Pictures from the day of production

Here are some of the pictures that we have taken while we were filming the film opening to show the equipment that we have used and the process of the filming day.

Filming the first shot of the horror film opening

Using a crane to create the effect that we wanted just before Lily says number '10'

By Melissa Owen, Alexandra Gibson, Emili Hone and Harry Crotty

Detailed Editing Schedule

We often have free periods together as well as lessons to edit (although not all of the lessons will be available for editing). I will add particular events onto our editing schedule as and when we do them. Below are all the opportunities that we have to edit after we film on the 3^rd February, until our first draft deadline set by our teacher on the 1^st March:

Date and time available to edit	Anything that we got done
Monday 4th February between 10:10am and 11:15am	All footage uploaded to the computer and imported into imovie. We ordered all the footage in the order of our storyboard.
Wednesday 6th February between 10:10am and 11:15am	We slightly re-ordered the footage so that it did not completely follow the original storyboard as we thought that it fitted better.
Thursday 7th February between 11:30am and 12:30pm AND 14:30pm and and 15:40pm	Cutting clips.
Friday 8th February between 11:30am and 12:30pm	Cutting clips. We also took all sound off as we realised the wind was too loud. We decided that we would need to add the sound separately, which means re-recording our actress’s dialogue.
Monday 11th February between 10:10am and 11:15am	Edited saturation and added a blue tinge to the clips to add a ‘creepy’ feel.
Tuesday 12th February between 11:30am and 12:30pm
Wednesday 13th February between 13:30pm and 14:30pm	Emili and Sasha went to a park to film white noise for the background as well as monotone sounds by banging the slide. We also recorded foley sound for the swing by rattling a chain against a fence.
Friday 15th between 14:30pm and 15:40pm HALF TERM WEEK WHERE WE ARE UNABLE TO EDIT AS ALL DATA IS ON SCHOOL COMPUTERS	All sound clips taken yesterday were imported and added to the opening.
Monday 25th February between 10:10am and 11:15am	All sound clips were put into place on the opening and the opening was complete for the first screening on the 1st March.
Wednesday 27th February between 10:10am and 11:15am
Thursday 28th February between 11:30am and 12:30pm AND 14:30pm and and 15:40pm

by Emili Hone

Health and Safety

Health and Safety Planning and Precautions 

When planning the production of our film opening, we had to consider the safety precautions of filming on our location, as we had young actors involved. We visited http://www.hse.gov.uk/entertainment/theatre-tv/film.htm and looked at the health and safety guidlines for Film, TV and Broadcasting. They outlined that we must have assigned roles to prevent chance of risk, so we all had jobs that we would rotate. For instance:

 Filming: Alexandra    Monitor: Harry   Directing: Emili    Director of Movement: Melissa

Director of movement was an important role in ensuring that Health and Safety was reinforced, as it was about controlling how and where the actors moved. Specifically in our piece where they ran.

Emili visited the location: A park and forest. She checked the ground that our actors would be running on, by testing out running as well. On the filming day we mapped out the paths that we wanted our actors to move in, so that there was no risk of them falling over bumps or obstacles. We assessed the risks of what we asked our actors to do, and decided it was safe on our amateur film to keep the stunts and action to a minimum.

The HSE website

By Alexandra Gibson

The HSE Website

Blurb

                   DVD Blurb of 'ten'.

The film opening is key to the main events that happen further on in the film. It sets up the general narrative for the film, and initially entices a viewer. To think of creative ways to draw in an audience I thought of different ways that a film appeals to a viewer, including a DVD blurb. Aside from the front cover, the blurb on the back of a DVD is supposed to attract someone to the film, as make it appear as endearing.

"A teenage girl, Bonnie, is seen playing hide and seek in the park with her boyfriend Jack. When Jack runs off into a nearby forest things go awry when he is stalked by an unknown 'predator' like villain. As Bonnie is left innocently counting in the park, little does she know she is counting down the seconds left of Jack's life, as he is killed by the hooded villain. Unaware, Bonnie is left counting, vulnerable and solitary. More importanly, left in reach of the killer. As Bonnie is about to reach the number '10' the villain pinpoints her as his next victim, and her fate is left unknown as the title rolls."

                                                       By Alexandra Gibson

Our Schedule

Week beginning…	What we need to get done…
Monday 7th January	1)      Decide on our location. 2)      Take location pictures and upload them to the blog.
Monday 14th January	1)      Finalise our opening synopsis. 2)       Begin storyboard.
Monday 21st January	1)      Decide on whom to cast for the boy and girl characters. 2)      Finish storyboard
Monday 28th January	1)      Film on Sunday 3rd February.
Monday 4th February	1)      Begin to edit footage together to form our opening. 2)      As we go along make decisions on the background music.
Monday 11th February	1)      Continue editing 2)      Continue adding music
HALF TERM	1)      Individually add anything to the blog that we feel needs to be added.
Monday 25th February	1)      Continue editing until it is complete.
Monday 4th March	1)      Burn the opening to disks for each of us to present and hand in.

Storyboard

The storyboard will be vital to our filming day, as it will ensure our organisation. We can use it to reference every shot that we take, to make sure that continuity is not an issue.



Written by Harry Crotty, Mel Owen, Sasha Gibson and Emili Hone

Drawn by Harry Crotty

What is our final narrative?

 

After a lot of idea's we have concluded on a narrative that is appropriate to our setting. Our opening's storyline will be portrayed through use of camera work and editing cutting between two situations. So, here it is:

A teenage girl and boy are playing hide and seek in the park.

 The boy ventures into the woods and begins to feel another presence.

Meanwhile, the girl is counting alone in the park, with her hands covering her eyes.

 The audience understands that something has happened to the boy, whilst the girl is left alone counting.

We then see the unknown presence watching the girl, and eventually sneaking up on her.

The name of the film then comes at the end of the opening.

We have decided to call the film "TEN" as the girl counts to ten, and is inevitably counting down to her own danger. It highlights the fact that they are playing hide and seek, a mysterious and secrtive game, which reflects the qualities of the unknown presence. We have chosen a cryptic antagonist because our research shows that people are most fearful of the unknown.

 

By Emili Hone, Sasha Gibson, Melissa Owen

Location

Initial location ideas

Within our group we have researched and discussed several locations that would best fit our horror opening. We have initially decided that we think an interesting place of setting is somewhere that people generally associate with being a safe place, as we wanted to juxtapose fear with the feeling of being in a place of sanctuary.

The four key places that we felt were associated with being safe were a church, a home, a school and a playground. All are places that in everyday life we would feel protected and away from harm, however they are common locations in horror films. For instance the film 'The Devil Inside' a film about demonic possession, and is mostly based in cathedrals, churches and hospitals - all places where people find protection, whether it be from God, or science. In the film 'Tormented' several teenagers are murdered by a bullied, dead student, all within they're school.

These locations would create tension and fear amongst and audience as unexpected places are affected by evil, subsequently making the audience feel a strong amount of unnerve.

By Alexandra Gibson