Dear Moderator

Dear Moderator,

My name is Isadora Spratling and welcome to my blog. It is a record of the work undertaken as part of the G321 AS Foundation Portfolio within the OCR GCE cause in Media Studies. I have worked with my friend Lauren Beer to produce a film opening in the thriller genre. The project lasted four months, commencing in September 2016 and finishing in March 2017. I hope you enjoy my work and find it both successful and interesting. Please use the navigation bar to access my work as organised into labels; Class Tasks, Film Opening Research, Film Reviews, Filming, Planning for my film opening, Preliminary Task, Rough cuts, Evaluation task activity, The final piece and Warner Brothers Tour. There is also a link to the St Mary's School Blog Hub. 

Thank you very much

Isadora

The Final Piece

After looking back on our film opening we discided that we should change our titles as they were too quick and small. We also alterered the names and the jobs roles. Finally, we added in a tense build up to exagerate the black charater. This will make it more gripping and help witht the sepense. By doing all of this it will make our film better and look more professional.
I hope you enjoy it.

Another rough cut

We gathered feedback and it all seemed very positive. I am very pleased with our film opening and I think the music that was added in gives it suspense and tension.

Evaluation Task Activity 1

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

Isadora and lauren’s evaluation activity 1 from lauren__beer

Evaluation Task Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For Lauren's and mine film opening we took inspiration from the film The Black Swan. We thought that Schizophrenia would be a really interesting thing to do a film on, especially focusing the film on the victim of Schizophrenia at a close view. We chose this topic as we wanted to make people aware of this sinister psychological problem people suffer with. We thought it would be effective as this is an occurring problem which is making people, especially young teenagers alone and isolated. By creating a film based on Schizophrenia it might help people feel less alone and also educate people who want to know more about it. We chose our main character to be a teenager as this is targeted for girls and boys of the ages of 15+. However, we do believe that the majority of our audience will be female as our main character is female and this might influence our audience. Both Nina from The Black Swan and Flora from our film Hallucinations have similarities and some differences.  Here are a few things that are similar and different between the two characters.

Age 

We chose a teenage girl who is around the age of 16 as we wanted to capture a younger age audience. By using a teenage girl it also present innocence and creates a verisimilitudinous effect. We also chose this age so people who are struggerling with schizaprenia can be supported.

Gender 

We chose our main character to be a female as like the film "The Black Swan" they used a girl as it presents sterotypes of weakness and femininity which is conventional for a victim in thriller films. By using an innocent female as a main character it put emphasis on the tension as people grow a connection and emphasis with her. 

Class and Status

We chose for our main character that her class and status would be middle class. This is becase we wanted all class of people to be able to connect with the main character. We tried to portray this through the way that she is dressed and sligtly when you hear her talk. 

Similarities:

• They both have a very natural looking face with minimal make up to present an innocent and young character.
• They hide behind the colour pink as a symbol of not wanting to face them true-selves
• Both the main character
• The film follows their battle with Schizophrenia
• Wear conventional clothes so its easier to carry on with their usual lives
• Film focuses on their facial expressions a lot of the time
• The film follows their everyday lives and we grow a connection with the main character as the audience
• Hiding behind all of the girly things that they can do as they know this darkness inside of them

Differences:

• Sense of style is different, our character has subtle things that gives us signs, whereas the character in The Black Swan (Nina)  tries to hide it as much as possible.
• Nina has physical sightings of things whereas Flora, our character is only seeing things in her head.
• Nina has physical things happen to her body whereas Flora doesn't

Evaluation Task Activity 3

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

This is Lauren and my evaluation 3, explaining the media institutions that have been distributed.

Evaluation Task Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Lauren and myself have created a poster for the type of audience that our film would appeal to. We thought that by doing a 'wanted' poster would be the closest and creative way of getting the correct/needed information obvious. As you can see from the poster we drew half female and half male, so that it is clear that this film is targeted for both genders.  We have also listed a few details that our audience might be interested in or come under. For example, they are teens so they go to school and they might be into fashion or fast pace dark films such as thriller genres.

Evaluation Task Evaluation 5

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Using a green screen we filmed us both talking about our film and our audience. We looked at how we attracted our targeted audience to make them want to watch our film.

Evaluation Task Activity 6

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

Evaluation Task Activity 7

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

This is Lauren and my podcast explaining our progression from our first time filming on our preliminary task to now on our film opening. We have made much progress since then and have learnt from our mistakes.

Our response to the showing of our film opening

Yesterday, Lauren and I were able to show our film opening to a group of people (39) who were 15 and above. The showing was very successful and gave us valuable response to improve. They also insured us that the film opening was good and had elements of creepiness. We got everyone to fill in a sheet with five questions. These were;

Do you think the sound is effective? Is there anything you would add?

Do you understand what is happening in the film opening?

Does it make you want to watch more of the film?

Is there any way we can improve it?

What would you rate the film out of 10?

These were the results. As you can see, we score very highly and the majority of our audience rated our film 10/10.

As you can see from our pie chart 56% rated 10/10,

28% rated us 9/10

15% rated us 8/10

Our New Ident

L
Last lesson lauren and I looked at our film opening. With feedback from our class mates we discided to change our ident as it didnt go with our film and didn't represnt a thriller well. It also looked too simplistic. Therefore, we came up with a better name that went well with our theme of our film opening and looked more sinister. The name of our production is called Shadow Productions and by using the sounds on imovie we used a sound of a gasp and slowed it down to make it sound deep and creepy. I am pleased with our ident as it reflects our film tittle better.

Updated Rough Cut of Our Film Opening

Editing process

So far, Lauren and I have made a rough cut of our film opening. We have managed to cut it down to 3 minutes 39 seconds. However, we still need to cut it further to 2 minutes. This might be challenging as we don't want to cut down too much as it wont make sense, however, creating ellipse would cut down some of the film and also still make sense to the audience.


We have started on editing the opening. In one scene Lauren and I both wanted to do slow motion when our character is walking in the park, to present isolation and a faint like experience. We firstly, split up the shot into small shots then gradually slowed it down and then sped it up. This looked really effective as she looks unstable and threatened.
Next we inserted our film ident and the certificate rating into the beginning of our film opening.


Next lesson will be putting sound on to the top of it, as well as voice overs. I think this will really add to the thriller as we can use sound effects that Flora can hear in her head. This will give the audience an insight to what she is experiencing and witnessing. We also need to add the credits at the beginning at the bottom of the screen.


Finally, we need to experiment with different tittles as I am not completely happy with our tittle font. We want it to be more dramatic and powerful so that the audience want to keep watching.


 At the moment all the editing has gone well and I am pleased with our film opening so far.

Rough cut of Hallucinations

Feedback on our filming days

On Thursday the 26th of January, Lauren and I started filming for our film opening. Beth, Neelum, Lauren and I all went back to my house after school and started to film. Our first few shots were outside. We were aware of time as we knew we wouldn't have long before the light would start fading. We used two cameras, one being my dads, which we filmed the majority on. We captured lots of different shots as we wanted more than we would need for just in case. We used a variety of shots, with high angle shots from the bedroom, POV shots, wide and close up shots. Using two cameras worked well as we could film with two different points of views.
We followed our story boards and shot list, so that we wouldn't miss anything off. Despite planning all the number of shots we took longer than we anticipated due to the attention to detail we wanted. Filming in the house was the majority of the opening and in the end we took 3 hours.
I am so pleased with the out come as we capture all the shots we wanted to get and more.

The following Saturday the 28th of January, we filmed the park scene. We planned to have four children as our extras in this scene, but due to extra activities, last minute we found out that they weren't able to make the Saturday. This left us with only my brother to fill in. However, this worked well as he looked creepy and gave a sense of isolation when he was playing on the park appartus.
Filming during lunch hours in a park proved to be difficult as we had children and parents in the way. After some time we managed to get the shots we wanted without members of the public in it.
Overall, I think our filming days were successful and I am pleased with the actors we used as they were perfect for their characters and also were a helpful input to Lauren and I.

Timetable for filming day

                                                                             Dates and Times

Thursday 26-                   4:00- 6:00- shower and bed scene at my house (Neelum and Beth)

Saturday 28th -               11:00 - walking scene (Neelum and Beth)

                                          12:00- 1:30 - Park scene (kids and Beth and Neelum)

             
February Half Term-     Editing

Risk Assessment

Timetable

This is our timetable for the next few weeks when we are preparing to film our film opening. The date in red is the date we are unsure of. We will sort this out closer to the time.

Shot List