Friday 16 January 2015

Research- Group narratives - Miss Georgiou

Group narrative

In my group there are three members Bettie, Malu and myself.

Group member 1 - Kane Faulkner-Wild


My Film is going to be located in the forest. It will consist of a group of friends that take a stroll into the forest, they have an argument and one of the characters walks a head of the group (female), what no one noticed is that they was being stalked by a two men in white masks. once the girl is far enough ahead of the group the two stalkers show themselves. 
The group who are remaining split up to try and find the girl not knowing that she is now with the two masked men. The group then meet back up after not finding their missing friend, but now there is another missing in the group.
The group decide to stick together and leave the forest assuming the other two must be together. The group then see one of their friends laying dead in the bushes. They then panic and try and run out the forest and they bump into the two men.
The mis en scene will be set in the forest.
Iconography - The white masks.
There will be cinematography, a range of different camera angles to make the killers scary.
Our target audience will be 15 plus, mainly between 15-20 but aimed at the mass market as it the thriller genre is watched by all ages.

Advantages:
- Uses the conventions of a thriller film, i.e the forest location
- unidentified killer (masked)


Disadvantages:


Group member 2 - Bettie Cooper
The narrative I've come up with is the theme of cannibalism. This is when people eat other people. I think this is an unusual narrative an the idea is quite mysterious and disturbing. I think this would surprise people which is an element of thriller. Two characters are walking in the forest when they discover something isn't right and they are not alone. They could be walking their dog and when it runs off and goes missing they have to split up to look for it by themselves. This could be where something starts to go wrong and things start to become suspicious.My idea of a good setting for my short thriller sequence is in the forest at night time. I think this would be a good setting because it is automatically associated with frightening themes at night time. The iconograpy that we could use would be masks. This could be to show a hidden identity and make the murderer seem more mysterious and unknown. The use of masks makes sure that the audience cant build a relationship with the characters and it makes them anticipate what they may be like and what their intentions are. A good use of iconography would be weapons to use in my short thriller sequence. These weapons could include things such as a knife, a gun or perhaps a bat. This is because it is conventional to the thriller genre because the antagonist usually uses weapons to assist their attacks but also because it makes the audience feel more frightened and it creates suspense to what the weapons will be used for which always leads to death, pain or brutality.I think the weather should be cold, muggy and dull. This is because it is conventional to the thriller genre as it immediately gives a negative and cold feel to it, it makes the audience feel as if something bad is about to happen. and it gives them a sense of foreboding.
Advantages:
- Unusually and different narrative, not many people will think of the idea.
-

Disadvantages
- Hard to film if we were filming the eating scene
- Could be seen as a bit unrealistic



Group member 3 - Malu Pillai

In this opening sequence, it would start by showing the setting of where the scene is set by displaying a panning of the forest. The lighting that would be show would be at a low key as it would create more suspense and enigma which is conventional for the thriller genre. After the setting is displayed, the frame would then display a slow zooming in into the two characters walking their dog so that we see a rough image of what the two characters look like and hear a typical conversation they would be having to represent their personalities. After this is displayed, it would be cut so immediately the focus is on the dog once it starts to sense that the bad omen is nearby and runs off. As the dog is running off, it will then cut straight into one of the characters point of view angle so that as the audience we can see what they are viewing and can see everything from their perspective to add more suspense. The camera angle will then change into a extreme long shot so that the audience can see the two characters split up and go different directions while we also see the focus on the background showing that they are isolated and have no one to help them adding more tension to the sequence. After the two characters have shown their two different departures would then change into the dogs point of view perspective and would slowly starting zooming in towards the back of the antagonist once the dog discovers that she is a cannibal and is eating the other characters. At this point we would then show her turning round to face the dogs perspective with her face covered in blood in a slow editing to add more suspense and shock towards the sequence and to add enigma and to display what she has done. After this the sequence would slowly fade out to leave the audience in shock and leave them with an untold enigma.



Advantages:
- Having the dogs POV camera angle is unusual
-


Disadvantages:


Final Group Narrative 

Character:

Kane
Bettie
Kane's Friend
Maisy
Billy
Stacey











Wednesday 14 January 2015

Rough cut - Miss Georgiou

 Rough Cut 

Audience feedback is important when constructing our production as it helps our group understand what we have done well, and what needs to be changed. The feedback is to help us improve and highlight errors that we may not have noticed.

We gathered audience feedback each time we edited our clips because we would ask other groups what they thought of our footages so far. Once we had finished editing our rough cut we showed it to the whole class and teacher. Everyone gave a verbal feedback on what they thought was conventional; for example, the soundtrack we had playing throughout was seen as a positive and clearly identified the film as a thriller. The constructive Cristian we received was the shot where better turns round to reveal she is the antagonist, here the lighting was way to dark and will we change that when we film again. We also uploaded our rough cut production onto youtube publicly, this means anyone can view, like and comment on our film, Devour. We have gained five likes, and three comments which have positives and constructive comments which we can use to improve our rough cut.

Due to being so involved with making and producing the film it is easy to think that the audience will understand the narrative. Having a stranger watch the production, and seeing if they understand and follow the film is vital. In our rough cut we did not included the clip with the dog in, therefor shouting "Bella" is a bit miss leading as the audiences could assume it's a human. The feedback from others will Benefit my groups production and the film industry as we can adapt and change scenes to statisfy the audience,  also when recieving positive feedback it gives the group a moral boost, which keeps us all workings hard to succeed.


The main three positive comments we recieved were the: soundtrack and sound effects, low key lightings and finally the cinematography. The soundtrack we used was called 'house of leaves' we downloaded this soundtrack off a free copywright website. The feedback we got was that the soundtrack was very conventinal to the thrillers genre, this lead to the audience feeling scared and being on the edge of their seats. This is what we hoped the soundtrack would bring to the film. Secondly the low key lighting was another aspect that the class and teacher thought was a positive to making our film successful. We used different filter on Final Cut Pro x to keep a low key lighting on our film, we also adjusted the brightness to try and match the lighting due to filming at different times  of the day. The feedback was that it left a eery and thriller feeling to the production. Finally the cinematography we used was recognised, especially the scene where the points of view of Fred walking up behind Bettie. This made the audience feel the tension between the characters and increased the shock when Betti finally turns round.

The main constructive feedback our production received was some of the shots were slightly shaky. This lead to the audience stuggling to concentrate on the film, therefor our way to improve this would be to ensure the camera is correctly set up on the tri pod to avoid errors. Another constructive feedback was the narrative, we did not film enough shots to clearly tell the narrative, also Miss pointed out that the two male characters looked too similar, and should change their outfits to help the audience understand. Therefor we will need to add and change shots to overcome this feedback. The final and main constructive feedback was the shot that was Bettie turning round. It was clearly filmed on another day and the lighting was a lot darker than the rest of the shots. To avoid this next time, we will need to organise days and times when we can all film, and ensure the lighting is the same.