Diary post: 25/11/2014

Today I started to plan my storyboard animatic, my idea is to take photographs of each different shot types showing briefly what is going to be in this clip. As iv planned I am looking to take around 60-75 different shot types which is what I planned in my shot lists to see if it is realistic or not. I will also add my titles over the top with the sound in the background and any dialogue I that I am planning to use.

Film 2 minute opening analysis of Hush:

Hush analysis. The certificate for the film is a 15, a British horror/ thriller genre, 91 minutes long and was released in 2008. The basic plot is that a young couple on a motorway journey are drawn into a game of cat and mouse with a truck driver following a near accident. The film’s director and writer was Mark Tonderai, starring actors such as William Ash, Christine Bottomley and Andreas Wisniewski. The genre is introduced into the film because of the range of wide shots introducing the setting, the setting tend to be dark and mysterious. What also helped introduce the setting was the weather; it was raining, dark and gloomy which follows the conventions of the film genre I am looking to re-create. Because of this reason I thought of different ideas that I could do to re-create different scenes that are similar to hush. I want my film opening to be as clear as to what type of film it is as soon as the audience begin to watch it, being a stereotypical horror/ action film. The film is introduced straight into action of the couple in the car on a journey on the motor way, however the female is challenging stereotype as she argues back and just as much as the male. From first impressions I can tell that the woman is slightly confident and not afraid to argue back, however she does uphold stereotype when she seems to become upset after the argument the couple share. Her appearance is casual comfortable clothing which suggests that this is a normal car journey for them that they are used to and by doing this makes it easy for the target audience to relate with the couple making it more appealing to them. The males appearance is slightly similar to the female, which again suggests the same type of things, also it is dark and the roads seem empty which makes me believe that it is a very late drive. So, for that reason is understandable / again relatable for the target audience to relate to their situation. There are a mixture of wide/ mid shots and close ups during the opening sequence of hush. I believe that these mixtures of shot types worked well for different reasons. Firstly, the wide shots helped introduce a range of different locations such as the inside of the car, where they were driving (the motor way), where they stopped off (petrol station) and also the other vehicles involved in the film opening. Introducing the setting into a film is important for a audience to be able to understand and be able to familiarise themselves with what is going to happen in the film. Mixtures of wide and mid shots were used to help introduce the actors in the film and what type of people they are. So, for example how they dress, how they sit- so what they’re posture is like, how they present themselves to each other, how they react during the opening sequence to each other and also to get slightly more detail than a wide shot using a mid shot gives you a little bit more detail. The close ups helped the audience to be able to understand the actors emotions and how they felt about the situation, so for example when they were arguing, I found it easier to tell who was more in control in the relationship and also I was able to tell that she felt more upset after looking closely at facial expressions or close ups of her hands for example fidgeting.

An example of a typical audience member for my film:

A typical person for my audience would be a teenager 15 and over until late 20's. The reason I started at 15 is because that is the rating of my film so it was impossible to go any lower. Being a teenager or being in their early twenties the audience tend to have a lot of disposable income which is good for the cinema business, seeing as it is a choice to go, not something you have to have which is why it is key to target this age audience.

Also from research I have found that late teens to early mid twenties are the most popular audiences in cinemas over all, followed by families. As the family target audience are not who I'm aiming my film at its almost impossible to consider them for my film. 

The gender of a typical person for my film is either male or female, as it isn't aimed at one or the other, during research I found that action/ thriller may be stereotypically thought to be aimed at males, but from secondary research figures it is only slightly more so that doesn't matter. 

Taken analysis (looking at conventions of the film genre):

Taken analysis- Thriller/ action genre.

The genre is introduced smoothly with a mid-shot and a range of medium close ups to show the main character’s facial expressions and body language. For example, the character seems to be turning left to right looking for something, he tends to be worried and is talking to his daughter on the phone, this shows that something is wrong, hinting to the audience that something is going to go wrong and stereotypically this male will solve it. 

Because a medium close up has been used it helps the audience to understand how is feeling as you can see closely his facial expressions which tend to be confused a lot of the time.

The man upholds stereotype by being the strong and brave male who solves the crime/ issue helping the young girl that is in danger. You can see that he is taken control of the situation, taking the archetype of the big shot, someone who is the main source of attention.

The second character, the daughter is introduced with a mixture of mid shots and close ups to as well as introducer herself and her emotions towards the situation. You can also tell a lot from her body language, the woman is represented as a stereotypically weak person who needs help from a strong male character. Her hair is plated back which is normally what little girls have in their hair when their mothers do it, which suggests that, the background is a pale green/ blue which suggests uncertainty, the audience know that something bad is going to happen, the colours reflecting her mood/ reactions. The female is pacing back and forth along the room which also shows from body language that she is worried, she cannot sit still as she is just waiting for something to happen.

The actions from both the characters introduce the genre of the film, its followed by up-beat fast music which is dramatic which builds tension and suspense for the audience again, suggesting that something bad is going to happen. 

Survey results:

Currently writing about my results, I have had 26 answers which is great, in terms of the information that I would like to find out so far this is enough people.

80% of people who took part were 14- 18 and mainly the rest was 18-25 which is very useful to me because my target audience is within these age groups. I had an answer from a 31-40 year old, despite them not being so much in my target audience as well as the other age groups that responded it will be interesting and useful to see what results they had.

As expected, more females took part in my survey, but this is not a problem because I also had a fair amount of responses from males as well making my survey fair.

I asked where people would normally expect a horror/ action film to take place because for my film I wasn't sure whether to make it very stereotypical or challenge stereotypes. But from my research I feel that taking the more stereotypical route to my film will help in making it more recognisable as well as maybe something the younger generation are able to relate to.
From these results it wasn't too clear what path to go down. There was a number of different results which you can see from the graph that I put together, But the most popular results I had was the woods or an abandoned house. Because of this I wanted my storyline to go down the route of including a setting such as one of these. But because I was just producing the opening I wanted it to be a familiar setting, something realistic and then be able to devolp the story into one of these chosen settings which I think would work really well, for example where the girl will be taken to and held.

I asked this question because I wanted to know what feelings I could project to the audience given from my films actions. As expected fear and worried emotions were the most popular, I feel this is because the younger audience want something exciting to happen which is great as I feel that my film will project these emotions well.

I asked this question because I felt that this was an important way of identifying the audience and who is appealing to watch my film. Again, I had a mixture of results, I believe this is because the people who filled out the survey didn't have that much knowledge on these different answers to chose from as I could only briefly fill them in. 

As a result of this my results came back as a mixture, also they could have different interests but the majority of the results had been of an individual.

Great response from this question, as 18 of the results were horror followed by 8 being action. This is a postive outcome for me as it means that my film is aimed at the correct target audience and it is good to know that they are most likely to come and see the genre of my film.

For these results it didn't work as well as I had hoped, this is because I had received some answers which was immature such as '#BANTA' and 'no sorry baby'. I also had results of names of actors which are not directors so overall I do not think this question was as affected as I had hoped for. 

Again, great results which are just what I wanted, my film opening is all about tension building and wanting to know what happens next, as for the 'other' responce, it had said that they wanted something exciting to happen which I feel links in with the first two options anyway, so I am planning on keeping my idea of my film opening.





































Lastly, I chose to ask this question because in terms of making a film may all be good, but you need to understand how people are attracted to watch the film in the first place. My main answers was an interesting storyline, which again is a great result as I feel my film will offer this in the future.

Sound Track Research:

Music/ the backing track for a film is very important, also looking at existing film openings it tends to be very important for openings just as much as the rest of the film. I believe that the soundtrack adds to the image that you are trying to introduce to your audience as the film is beginning. My film is a action// horror so I believe that the soundtrack for my film needs to be tension building especially as I am planning on opening my film mid action on a flash back.
So, I began by looking at some copy right free websites to see if any of the soundtracks was suitable or just to get a rough idea of what sort of soundtracks which are copyright free sounded like and if they differed a lot from soundtracks which are not copyright free.
The first website I looked at was called http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1300013, this website was helpful because it let you choose what sort of music you was looking to include, there is various types of sounds for different genres, which was really helpful. The soundtrack that I found most likely to use was a mix between a few different ones as I was unsure on how well it would mix with the footage that I would of recorded.

I also looked at another website https://ia600408.us.archive.org/22/items/EerieCreepyAndScaryMusicForYourScoresDvds/DvdThemeMusic-chasePulse.mp3  which had again, different tracks to choose from and customise to my choice which was helpful. I found one track that was slightly creepy and mysterious which is sort of what I am aiming to go for but mainly I believe that I am going to create suspense for the audience. As I am the age of the target audience myself and from my surveys I feel that building up tension is the best way to keep the audience hooked onto a film, leaving them wanting to know what happens next resulting in them watching the whole film and most likely to discuss with friends afterwards.

However, looking at these different soundtracks made me want to experiment more with what music that I choose to use. As a result of this I began to try out different effects on the music that I had chosen to use. For example, on IMovie I was aloud to make the soundtrack deeper or more echoey or slow down the pace. I believe that this is a good element for making my films soundtrack because I feel that I have given my own change to it, also fitting the original soundtrack with the edited footage and seeing how well it fits with it/ making changes will depend on the editing techniques and how fast it is moving because I am looking at building tension.

Overall, I feel that researching into copyright free music was helpful in terms of choosing something for my film opening because I found that it is had to choose something to fit in with my own footage, and as a result of this I looked into further of editing the copyright free music to fit in more with my footage and also have a more personal feeling to it for my film making it slightly more different from others being able to use the same backing track, as I have edited it, nobody will have the same music exactly.

Creating my survey:

As part of my research I conducted a questionnaire in order to have some feedback on what my target audience may be looking for in a film such as the one I am currently planning on creating. 

This is a screen shot of my survey which I had created online which was easy for me to share with people hoping they fill out the questions.  

 I thought it was important to ask for the audience members age and gender because even though I am aiming to target both genders, I am able to look at the individuals results and I thought that it would be interesting to see the differences between the genders, As for the age, I am targeting a certain age group so it is important that the right age group is filling out my survey and if they are not then I can look at the other age groups answers and look at if they would be a suitable target audience for my film as well.

 The other questions are important because throughout creating my film because I am able to not only see what my typical audience member is like/ interested in viewing/ appeals to but also I am able to analyse my results that I gain back and change my film if I feel need to be.

I am glad that I have used such a clear and easy format to allow my audience to fill out my survey quickly and without any problems as they could become frustrated and end up not taking part as it is not something they need to do.