- Genre: Contemporary British Horror
- To be the closing scene (Climatic Sequence to a film)
- Target Audience: Males aged 18 - 30 who are able to identify with mainstream horror/disaster films.
- Influenced through films such as Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project
- Apply the effects and style of filiming i have learnt in class over the past 2 years.
Monday, 10 May 2010
My Evaluation
I believe that my film ended up being a success although I did encounter a few problems. I took inspiration for my film from contemporary British Horror movies, specifically the type of fiming that attempts to immerse the audience into the film via the use of POV shots; i.e films such as the Blair Witch Project and more recently Cloverfield. I wanted to make a film which was a hybrid of both these types of movie. However,budget constraints forced me to re-think this idea; Cloverfield had multi million pound budget I soon realised that trying to combine these two hybrids in such away was beyond my ability. And so,the Blair Witch project slowly became my main inspiration due to it’s more gritty horror feel which was indeed made more effective because of its lower budget.
However certain ideas from my initial concept remained in my evemtual product, such as my target audience; my intended audience were male with an age range of 18 – 30 with an understanding for mainstream cinema, I felt this audience would recognise the influences in my film and enjoy the concept in my film
Through the course of this project, technically I went on a steep learning curve. prior the the projectI was a novice with video editing software as this has never been one of my strong points, my understanding of it grew through the course of the project and although ~i have used it before in my two year film studies course, it is not an area I felt I was particularly strong in. My editing skills got better and this is reflected in my project, with my favourite techniques being the ‘’ghosting’’ and ‘’black and white’’ feature I used to distinguish between the assailant and protagonist as I felt that different camera angles and movements would not be effective enough alone.Without this additional editing I felt that the impact of the film would be diminised, POV shots alone are not enough to convey a contemporary horror. Another strength in my film I think is the lighting, fortunately I was blessed with good weather over the days of filming which gave the film an eerie feel, which when compared to other horror films which are typically dark and focus on dull colour palettes something usually associated with the Italian Neo Realism style of filming giving the film a darker and a more gritty and realistic overtones, I think film audiences are becoming less responsive and have a highly diluted attitude towards this approach to horror and I hope that my comparably sunny setting will take them out of this newly found ‘comfort zone’ and give the audience a feeling of uncomfortableness.
My understanding of a filming process grew greatly throughout the course of this work; Firstly I don’t think I truly understood the pressures of the directors role within a film. With others trying to change my view on how a shot should be done or trying to gain the correct angle for a shot and having it done how I wish was a very hard task in my opinion. Another would be how the video editing software works, although it is obvious that this is nowhere near the level of Hollywood films I do see this as an area of skill growth for me as I had never really spent much time using this software and getting to grips with the various effects within the Adobe Premier programme.
If given an opportunity like this again there are a few different things I would try to develop my project. Firstly, one example I would like to try is doing the same film again but instead taking inspiration from another type of film, thereby ridding myself of the POV shots and perhaps do a take on the opening scene of 28 Days Later and focus more on long shots and tracking the characters thereby giving a sense of loneliness and isolation with a larger environment.
Another difference I would like to try would be to turn it into a short film in itself, instead of the climatic scene of a whole film, as I believe that this would enable me to facilitate a larger variety of shots and filming techniques such as the addition of Non diegetics to add to the feel to the movie as I believe an appropriate music score would of improved my project significantly. My final change would be to spend more time perfecting and recreating horror codes and conventions and measuring the audiences reactions to these codes. For example, I would perhaps use a darker setting as I mentioned earlier to give the more evil atmosphere to the film, as is often a feature of british horror, or perhaps a more menacing assailant who looks more supernatural/threatening as even if my opinion a horror can usually be judged on just how ‘evil’ the antagonist is.
In my opinion, I believe that my film was successful, when I screened my film for an audience it was generally recieved well. I also think that the smallest deatils and more attenbtion paid to these details can make a big difference to the quality of the film, most of my audience commented on the effective use of lighting, especially the use of a circular narrative topped and tailed by the shot of the sun. This was the most consistent and positive feedback I recieved, the audience felt it gave my project an added eeriness that was not usually seen in modern horrors due to the stereotypically murky mise-en-scene.
I was also complimented on my shot composition, although they where all POV shots they varied in distance and focus, with the main difference being the use of black and white and colour which as I hoped did distinguish between the two.
However there where also a few drawbacks that I discovered upon showing it to others, for instance although my shots made it clear who each character was, it was difficult to understand from the beginning and what was happening. Something I corrected later by adding the additional narrative, in the form of a radio broadcast to explain what was happening as a prelude to the conclusive scenes, thus ensuring the audiences knew or at least were reminded of the back story and re-enforce the idea of time passing.Similar to that of the climatic scene in 28 Days Later. All in all, my film had many positives which I am proud off, especially as this was my first proper attempt at filming a longer piece of work. It also helped me broaden my understanding of the filming process itself. If I was to do the project again there are most definately a few features I would look to change, but overall I am impressed with the level of quality I managed to produce.
However certain ideas from my initial concept remained in my evemtual product, such as my target audience; my intended audience were male with an age range of 18 – 30 with an understanding for mainstream cinema, I felt this audience would recognise the influences in my film and enjoy the concept in my film
Through the course of this project, technically I went on a steep learning curve. prior the the projectI was a novice with video editing software as this has never been one of my strong points, my understanding of it grew through the course of the project and although ~i have used it before in my two year film studies course, it is not an area I felt I was particularly strong in. My editing skills got better and this is reflected in my project, with my favourite techniques being the ‘’ghosting’’ and ‘’black and white’’ feature I used to distinguish between the assailant and protagonist as I felt that different camera angles and movements would not be effective enough alone.Without this additional editing I felt that the impact of the film would be diminised, POV shots alone are not enough to convey a contemporary horror. Another strength in my film I think is the lighting, fortunately I was blessed with good weather over the days of filming which gave the film an eerie feel, which when compared to other horror films which are typically dark and focus on dull colour palettes something usually associated with the Italian Neo Realism style of filming giving the film a darker and a more gritty and realistic overtones, I think film audiences are becoming less responsive and have a highly diluted attitude towards this approach to horror and I hope that my comparably sunny setting will take them out of this newly found ‘comfort zone’ and give the audience a feeling of uncomfortableness.
My understanding of a filming process grew greatly throughout the course of this work; Firstly I don’t think I truly understood the pressures of the directors role within a film. With others trying to change my view on how a shot should be done or trying to gain the correct angle for a shot and having it done how I wish was a very hard task in my opinion. Another would be how the video editing software works, although it is obvious that this is nowhere near the level of Hollywood films I do see this as an area of skill growth for me as I had never really spent much time using this software and getting to grips with the various effects within the Adobe Premier programme.
If given an opportunity like this again there are a few different things I would try to develop my project. Firstly, one example I would like to try is doing the same film again but instead taking inspiration from another type of film, thereby ridding myself of the POV shots and perhaps do a take on the opening scene of 28 Days Later and focus more on long shots and tracking the characters thereby giving a sense of loneliness and isolation with a larger environment.
Another difference I would like to try would be to turn it into a short film in itself, instead of the climatic scene of a whole film, as I believe that this would enable me to facilitate a larger variety of shots and filming techniques such as the addition of Non diegetics to add to the feel to the movie as I believe an appropriate music score would of improved my project significantly. My final change would be to spend more time perfecting and recreating horror codes and conventions and measuring the audiences reactions to these codes. For example, I would perhaps use a darker setting as I mentioned earlier to give the more evil atmosphere to the film, as is often a feature of british horror, or perhaps a more menacing assailant who looks more supernatural/threatening as even if my opinion a horror can usually be judged on just how ‘evil’ the antagonist is.
In my opinion, I believe that my film was successful, when I screened my film for an audience it was generally recieved well. I also think that the smallest deatils and more attenbtion paid to these details can make a big difference to the quality of the film, most of my audience commented on the effective use of lighting, especially the use of a circular narrative topped and tailed by the shot of the sun. This was the most consistent and positive feedback I recieved, the audience felt it gave my project an added eeriness that was not usually seen in modern horrors due to the stereotypically murky mise-en-scene.
I was also complimented on my shot composition, although they where all POV shots they varied in distance and focus, with the main difference being the use of black and white and colour which as I hoped did distinguish between the two.
However there where also a few drawbacks that I discovered upon showing it to others, for instance although my shots made it clear who each character was, it was difficult to understand from the beginning and what was happening. Something I corrected later by adding the additional narrative, in the form of a radio broadcast to explain what was happening as a prelude to the conclusive scenes, thus ensuring the audiences knew or at least were reminded of the back story and re-enforce the idea of time passing.Similar to that of the climatic scene in 28 Days Later. All in all, my film had many positives which I am proud off, especially as this was my first proper attempt at filming a longer piece of work. It also helped me broaden my understanding of the filming process itself. If I was to do the project again there are most definately a few features I would look to change, but overall I am impressed with the level of quality I managed to produce.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Sorry..
Hi Miss,
Finally got on here with some help from others :)
However there have been a few problems, i'm currently still in the process of uploading my video to youtube and it is telling me that it estimates another 308 minutes for it to upload, after the original time of around 600 or so?! Not to sure what went/is going wrong there?!?!
And after all the excitement of finally getting the work done, i ended up forgetting to email myself the document with my presentation on, on Friday.
Sorry for all this, but if theres anyway you can write back or something and let me no any ideas? Am i able to access my school work from home somehow to get the evaluation on here?
Gareth x
Finally got on here with some help from others :)
However there have been a few problems, i'm currently still in the process of uploading my video to youtube and it is telling me that it estimates another 308 minutes for it to upload, after the original time of around 600 or so?! Not to sure what went/is going wrong there?!?!
And after all the excitement of finally getting the work done, i ended up forgetting to email myself the document with my presentation on, on Friday.
Sorry for all this, but if theres anyway you can write back or something and let me no any ideas? Am i able to access my school work from home somehow to get the evaluation on here?
Gareth x
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