Friday 3 May 2013

Immunity- Final Cut


Here is our finished product, I geninually belive that Immunity is pretty decent, considering the budget and equipment we had to use. Hopefully everybody else has the same opinion.

Audeince Feedback

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co30MSYRzBI&safe=active

Youtube link to some feedback to our film Immunity.

Animated Storyboard



Thursday 2 May 2013

1. In what way does your film use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?

Well, with our film being a post apocalyptic horror, our film is pretty much in the same mould as 28 Days Later. In 28 Days Later, Jim, the main character is walking around a deserted London centre, which usually is very busy. In Immunity we see shots of empty town centres too, but without a character for the majority of it, unlike 28 Days Later.

Immunity-28 Days Later

1.Here is one of two production companies. We named it "Horizon Productions". For this we used a students piece of art from college. We then edited it slightly by putting the title on the logo.

2. In the next screenshot you see, they're two people sat in a living room watching the news unfold regarding the riots. We filmed by slowly zooming in on the television which added a fuzzy effect once it had zoomed in fully. We also put in the opening credits in this shot because there isnt a lot going on other than the rioting.

3. The next shot is probably my favourite shot in our film. It is a shot of an empty town centre showing traffic lights. Its my favourite because it also shows the emptiness right at the far end of the shot rather than just the close up of it. Because we filmed this on an early Saturday morning it is a dark shot which adds a bit of suspense. We want the red traffic lights to suggest that everything has come to a stand still.

4. In this next shot, it shows a car which suggests that it has been dumped since it has its doors open. The shot may suggest that life may still be left, however with the car in a dumped state it indicates that somebody has tried to make a quick getaway regarding the zombies or the riots.

5. This is what has happened after the riots. With a load of broken glass, rubble and a load of other rubbish. Again the dark colours make the film more negative.

6. In the next one, it shows a dog walking a across with the camera panning across from left to right. This dog suggests that there maybe some life left, however as far as we know the dog or the animals could be the infection. Again, the darker effects make the film and scene a negative feel.

7. This shot show some swings swinging, however there isnt anyone there to force them to swing, again does this suggest that there was life here moments ago? Or was it just the heavy winds forcing them to swing.

8. In this shot, we see the character for the first time. We filmed this using an extreme long shot of the survivor/character walking across a field with a jumping effect, to suggest that time is passing by. We did the jumping effect because the scene otherwise would be rather dull and boring.

9. Rather simple, yet in my opinion seems quite effective. Cameron and Calum worked hard on trying to find the right font and editing techniques to make it look as professional as possible. We find the resulting product rather pleasing.

28 DAYS LATER

1. As you can see or the screen grabs, both of the films used riot shots in the opening sequences. These help establish whats going on in the film.

2. The title in 28 Days Later although maybe plain, but i find it quite effective again, simply because it gives us a creepy sort of atmosphere towards the film.

3. We considered a similar type of opening to introduce our character in Immunity, however we felt it would be too similar. In 28 Days Later, Jim who is the main character wakes up in a hospital bed, waking up, walking out of the hospital and seeing London in a deserted state and having no idea whats been going on.

4. In this shot, he explores the streets of London, finding and collecting money and food and drink to help survive. In Immunity we did something similar by filming empty streets and town centres etc.

5. Shows a long shot of a car dumped, very similar to ours which is more of a close up. There are also more vehicals in this shot.

6. Shows a close up a of headline on a newspaper insisting that London has been evacuated.

7. Another long shot of London centre, showing off the emptiness, suggesting that London has been wiped out.

8. A medium shot of Jim in a dark staircase. This helps the suspense build as Zombies maybe around. I would say that none of our shots really compare to any of ours shots, as our are totally different.

9. Comparing the 9th screen shots the two films, 28 Days Later obviously looks more exciting and scarier. However 28 Days Later had a budget to work with as we didnt.

In conclusion, I believe that the Immunity opening sequence was a success considering the tools and equipment we had on offer compared to films such as 28 Days Later. I feel our film had suspense which we could carry on working with throughout the film. We used various camera angles and editing techniques to give our film a tense atmosphere. I feel our ending to the opening sequence makes you want to watch it to the end.

28 Days Later is a lot scarier than ours, Immunity has a more tense atmosphere instead. However, both films are hugely similar in terms of the rioting scenes both films have. 

2. How does your film represent particular social groups?

This is a screenshot from our film opening, showing the lead character in "Immunity" Calum and his clothing here is plain and he is not styled in a particular way; this helps people to relate to him more easily which is essential in any film. He is dressed in a pair of white overalls and a respiratory mask.

I am going to compare our character out of "Immunity", I am then going to compare him to someone of a similar age from a similar film. The character I have chose to compare our survivor to is Columbus OHIO from the film Zombieland.

In our film, the character is aware of the virus spread across the country, this is why he is wearing protective white overalls and a respiratory mask to prevent the chances of him becoming infected. He is also carrying his belongings in a bag what is around his shoulder which may have a weapon. Our character is in his late teens which is a stereotypical horror film character just like in other horror films in the US, however not many British horror films have teenagers playing the main role. For example,  Shaun of the Dead had Simon Pegg who was in his 30's at the time.


In Zombieland, Columbus is a very unusual survivor of a zombie apocalypse. He is a bit of a nerd/geek who meets another group of survivors and ends up being reliant on them in order to survive. Our film is different to Zombieland because Zombieland is a comedy/horror. As our film is based purely on horror. Columbus survived by sticking to a series of rules he created for himself in order to keep him alive.

The comparasson of the two characters is that Columbus is very relient on other people keeping him alive as he isnt the most confident of characters. Our survivor in "Immunity" on the otherhand appears to be very independent. As he walks across the field, he is heading towards the town centre, where the zombies are likely to be. It seems unlikely that a character like Columbus in Zombieland would be so confident and go alone in a situation like this. So our character could be heading to the town for anything for example....

He walks confidently across the field towards the town, perhaps towards the zombies and kill them himself? He could be heading towards a safety zone in the town centre and be with other survivors? He could possibly heading to the town to find survival equipment and help keep himself and perhaps others alive?

So overall, our film represents social groups when the riots on going ahead at the beginning of our sequence becuase of the outbreak of the virus in the town and the community are not happy which seems to be the youth of today. We did the riotting scene becuase we wanted to show how the country would react in this situation. Would they work together? Or would it be a big free for all against each other?





3. What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

Well with our film being a British horror film, I have looked at who distributed other horror films similar to ours. Obviously 28 Days Later is the best example, 28 Days Later was distributed by DNA Films. Other British horror films I have looked at are the two Descent films. Both of these were distributed by Celador Films, so maybe they maybe intrested becuase our film is very similar. Film 4 also maybe an option since they are a British film company, however I don't think they have distributed any horror films, so I don't think they would fit into our film genre. 
I also looked at Pathe Films as a potential distributor, however their genre isn't really on the horror side. They have done 127 Hours which is more of a thriller, which obviously doesnt fit into our film criteria.

Overall, I believe we would be stuck with two choices, either DNA or Celador. Both of these have had success with other British horror films. DNA had a huge hit with 28 Days later what took £52 Million at the box office. Meanwhile the Descent was also a success at the box office.

I think that our main audience will be British, so its very unlikely that an American distributer would be intrested in our film becuase the American audience wouldnt be intrested in a low budget British film.






4. Who would be the audience of your film and why?

I would expect "Immunity" to appeal to the ages of between 15-30 year olds, as our film would be a 15 or an 18 age certificate. I wouldn't consider our film to have a lower age certificate because children under the age of 15 could get upset and frightened because of the scary content later on in the film.

The Descent (2005) PosterI would expect "Immunity" to be appealing to all ethnicities since its an English film, I wouldnt expect foreigners to be intereted in our film since its a low budget English film, but I would consider Americans as a target audience for our film. I expect Americans to be interested becuase English horror films in the past have been successful in the US. 28 Days Later was a surprising success in the American box office with it taking $45 million dollors despite it only having limited release across the country. The Descent was another English horror film what had success in the US, on its debut weekend, The Descent grossed $8.8 million dollors and finished up taking around $26 million. This shows that Americans enjoy watching British horror films. But only if they have a decent budget. I wouldnt expect a low budget to appeal to Americans.

I would suspect that we would have more of a male audience as women prefer their romantic comedies. I think men would like our film becuase it has a suspense atmosphere in the opening sequence and in most horror films they have a similar sort of atmosphere. Women on the other hand probabily wont be interested. Women prefer to watch feel good films with a happy love story as men prefer more negative storylines.

I dont think that any other European countries would be a target audience becuase again they would probaily prefer big budget American films with well known actors. As ours on the otherhand has none of these.

We have used a young British male which may attract a bit of more of an audience as it will attract a female audience. It is also a safe bet because other males like to relate themselves to other males and see themselves more superior than a female taking a lead role in our film.



5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

To help attract our audience, we added music and background noises to our film. The music used in our opening sequence Prelude 3.0 by Slipknot. We chose this song because we felt the lyrics to the chorus fitted in the situation of our film. As our film continutes, a static clips and sounds then end the song suddenly adding to the suspense effect. As the static clip ends it shows a town centre deserted. This builds a suspence atmosphere, background noise of whistling winds also helps build this.

Because of our low budgets, I think we struggled to attract an audience. For example our character would have been better if he had a weapon, or something along those lines to make him more intimidating. Also a better budget would of meant we could of used better effects and better props and costumes.

In our opening sequence we used the same sounds throughout the film, after the music had stopped and the static cut to the traffic lights. We used the same sounds becuase we felt it created more of a scary, tension atmosphere. Origianlly we had Slipknot running throughtout the sequence, however we werent too keen, as it dampened the atmosphere and the tension as it didnt go with the film.

At the beginning of the sequence we introduce two production companies. "Horizon Productions" and "Pendle Hill Films." For Horizon Production we used an upbeat tune with it as it had a bright, positive feel to it. Pendle Hill on the otherhand, is more negative, becuase it has a negative, black and white filter on it. So we added a thunder as background noise. This brings us to relaise that it is a horror film.

Because of our low budget we are obviously struggling to add other props to our film. We would love to add some CGI, but obviously we cant do that. If we were to have a bigger budget, I would add some better effects, a better costume/overalls for our character and perhaps a weapon for him to. I feel this would make our film so much better in many ways, however, I feel our film is decent considering its low budget.

Obviously the mise en scene had to be rather negative to give a negative feel towards the film. The dark, dingy shots of rubbish outside the building didn't really answer whats happening in the film, but it does suggest that this what happened after the riots. In the scene with Calum, who plays the survivor. We shot it at eye level to help our audience relate to him. However I don't think its a shot for the audience to relate to, to much, because I don't think it give anything away regarding his personality. So therefore, I think the audience wont be able to relate to him.




 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process ofconstructing this film?

We have been using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our film as you can see from the photos. We used this programme because this is the software provided by the college. We learnt a lot using this editing programme. I don't think any of us have any previous experience using editing software. Despite this I say that we have learnt quickly as we found it very easy to use once we got use to it.

As You can see In the photo below, It shows the tripod and camera in view. In this shot we filmed the final parts to our opening sequence with Calum walking through a deserted field. We used a Canon Md325 video camera. We used this camera because this the equipment the college could provide, neither of us had better equipment. I have learnt that equipment can make a huge difference. I think a better video camera for example a HD camera would have made a huge difference to our film. It would have made it look more professional and more clear as the audience can see what's going on.

Throughout this task, we have been consistantly been using different forms of media to help construct our film. An example would be youtube, we used youtube to view other film opening to see other students media projects. Since our film was a horror, we looked at other horror films opening sequences such as 28 Days Later. We also posted our opening sequence on YouTube because of the millions of users it has daily. Hopefully we get plenty of views and hopefully some feedback, positive and construtive.

We have also been using other websites too, we have been using Blogger to talk about the progression of our film other the last few months. On my blogger I have talked about certain aspects of our film such as, where we had filmed recently, how we filmed, what we filmed etc. I also posted photos and videos of our group filming to provide evidence and to make my blog look better and more effective. After hearing we had to keep an up to date blog as part of our coursework, I immediately downloaded the app for "Blogger". I find the app better than the actual website, as the website can be very frustrating when adding photos to the blog, we found it difficult to roam the photos around the blog post. Obviously the app also has it down falls, but overall I found it easier to use.

So overall, I feel as a group we have learnt a lot, after a slow start in learning how to use the editing equipment, we picked it up quickly after playing around with it and our tutor helping us out. We knew what were getting in the quality of the camera, the camera wasn't bad, however I don't think its a camera to use to produce a film. The camera was easy and friendly to use and did a good enough job in what we wanted to do. Obviously we had to use a tripod to keep the camera when filming. The tripod we used was also decent, but it was at times a bit "dodgy", this is just down to it being quite difficult to erect, however it did what it had to do.









Monday 22 April 2013

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?

I feel I have learnt a lot in this process, however in our preliminary task put a bad picture towards my acting skills as our ex cameraman James starting filming when I wasn't ready. Because of this, I wasnt allowed to be an actor and James was later sacked!

In all honesty I believe that as a group we have learnt a lot. We now have a variety of camera shot ideas when we were filming, and generally know whats best for our film. As at the beginning we just didnt have a clue.

I feel that we learnt quickly when using the editing software in the editing suite. At the beginning of the coursework we were always asking for help regarding the editing software. Mr McGiffen would prompt us and suggest what we could do to make our film look better. But now and towards the end of our film we knew what we could do to make it better.

I think if you compare our two videos (prelim and Immunity) you can see the difference in terms of the quality of how it was edited and in term of the acting. (However there isn't much acting in Immunity). In our prelim video which you can view in one of my previous blog posts you see Calum walking down a corridor and opening a door in a close up shot. The camera isn't very stable, as a tripod isn't being used. After viewing this we noticed that a tripod is a very important piece equipment because it keeps the camera stable and makes the film look less amateurish..



Thursday 28 March 2013

Equipment Used

In our opening sequence, we mainly filmed using panning shots and close ups. We all suggested ideas where we could possibly film. We shot in several areas around Burnley including parks and deserted bits of land.  

For our filming we used a Canon Md325 video camera, I personally believe that the camera isn't the best camera for filming but we didn't much choice since neither us didn't have anything better. The camera itself isn't a bad camera, it lacked battery life, but i suppose you could say that with any standard video camera.
The zoom on the camera was pretty good, although the picture quality does slightly go a bit fuzzy when you do zoom in. Overall the camera is okay, but i think that a better defined picture would have been better.

The tripod we used was a Velbon DV 7000. Although I didn't really have a chance to use it due to my job role. From what saw and heard from Calum and Cameron, it looked difficult to keep still if there was a slight breeze.









Blogging

Obviously as part of this coursework we have to keep an up to date blog to show what we've been doing during the filming of our film.

For our blogs we have mainly been using laptops and computers at home and college. Thankfully i am fortunate enough to own an iPhone. I downloaded the blogger app, so I could blog whilst on the move. I found this the easiest way to keep updating my blog. Using my iPhone I also found it easier to upload photos i had taken to show what goes on while we are filming. I was given the title "chief blogger" because of my iPhone app.



Immunity Draft

Below is our 1st draft to our opening sequence titled "Immunity". We need to adapt one or two things for example, the "Naughty Wizard Products", this was just a temporary production company until we created another one we all agreed on.

Also in this version of our film, there is a new shot of traffic lights on a dual carriageway, we shot this in the early hours of a Saturday morning to reduce the chances of traffic being in the shot. There also a shot of a car in a car park with its doors open, this hopefully sends a message to our audience that the car has been dumped. Calum also volunteered to be an actor in the film after we agreed that it was lacking a character. So we filmed Calum walking across a field with white overalls on and a paper mask. This hopefully suggests that  Calum is the only human left on the planet.










Tuesday 26 March 2013

Relevent Changes

During the process of film making, you have to change and adapt a few things, and that is no different with ourselves. Some examples of changes we have made include the font of the credits in the sequence, the timing of when the credits come in, and the duration of the credits remaining on the screen.



We have also we constantly been altering the contrast and the brightness of certain scenes, we have done this becuase a lot of our footage was shot in pure daylight, when lots of horror films are dark and dingy. We have also slowed a lot of footage down to give a dramatic effect.


Introducing the charater.

After reviewing the footage shot, we mutually agreed that our film was lacking a character. So Calum volunteered to dress up in some white overalls and paper respiratory mask. Hopefully the character in the film will suggest that he is immune to the virus spread across the country.

It starts in an extreme long shot, with Calum walking across a field, getting closer to the camera.



Calum dressing in the overalls

Target Audience (Gender)

Judging from my general knowledge, I would say that our target audience is more likely going to be males. This is because the stereotypical male likes violence and action films, as women prefer romantic comedes and feel good films etc.

28 Weeks Later (2007) PosterAn example of a film similar to ours would be "28 Weeks Later". This is more of  a mens taste in films, the blood, violence and action is what all men crave in a film.

Saturday 23 March 2013

Target Audience (Age)



After doing plenty of research on other horror films and seeing what BBFC had rated horror films, we believe that we should be aiming for a specific audience of between 15-30 year olds.

Our film involves shots of empty streets, roads, dual carriageways and town centres. We are trying to get a message across to our audience that the country has been wiped out from a deadly virus. We believe that a younger audience would be confused and wouldn't have a clue whats going on.
I also did research on other films with a similar age certificate. Some films I did research on was 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead and The Happening. (Trailers below). These films have inspired us to do our own post apocalyptic film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eunaclr-WgU (28 DAYS LATER)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZGLRIOQHOY (Dawn of the Dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIQ21m1Ks08 (The Happening)






Concluding our Film

With the deadline approching, we have been hoping to conclude the final footage of our 2 minute opening sequence.

We got up in the early hours of a Saturday morning to film empty roads and dual carriageways to make the film look more authentic  We also went to the town centre and did panning shot across the deserted centre, to show that the town had been wiped out.







After reviewing the footage shot, we mutually agreed that our film was lacking a character. So Calum volunteered to dress up in some white overalls and paper respiratory mask. Hopefully the character in the film will suggest that he is immune to the virus spread across the country.  I have also included the video of Calum attempting to put on the overalls, i find this rather amusing. (Explicit content)