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Target Audience Questionnaire
I've embedded the questionnaire created by my group member Amy on SurveyMonkey that has questions that can help my group realise what our target audience likes and dislikes in horror films and their openings. This step is key in the research and planning stage prior to creating our final project as it allows us to realise who our target audience is and what they like to see in horror films. Also, this survey and its results can give my group ideas on what to include in our final projects storyline, that viewers would like to see. Analysis of Results
Below, I've embedded a Prezi presentation I have created to analyse the results gained from the target audience questionnaire. In the Prezi powerpoint I've wrote about what the results were from the main questions in our survey as well as, how the results will affect my groups final product.
Here is a presentation I've created that looks into the conventions of the horror genre. From creating this presentation, I've learnt about a variety of stereotypical conventions within horror movies. For example, dark lighting is a key convention of the genre. It was helpful to carry out this research as, I've now got a better idea of what to include within my final project to make it a success. The research task has also helped to spark some ideas of the narrative of my final project.
Certificate Ratings
Many horror films are rated 15 and 18. With horror films rated 15, the film can present strong threat and menace as long as story lines aren't too sexualised or sadistic. Strong gory imagery and narrative's aren't likely to be accepted within the 15 age rating.
The strongest and most extreme horror films are generally passed as being rated at 18. Horrors at this rating contain strong gore, sustained threats and menace and strong horror themes. Also, violence is very strong within 18 rated films.
From researching the certificate ratings, the ratings should be taken into consideration when aiming our final project. If my group wanted to aim our horror film at 15-17 year olds we would have to make sure we followed the 15/15A age ratings. So, we would have to make sure that the storyline for our film isn't too gory, brutal and violent. Also, the narrative can't involve strong violence or discriminatory language and behaviour.
However, if we wanted to aim our final project at 18 year olds then there's more room for a strong horror storyline. Things like strong violence, bad language and strong gore and blood are all allowed with an 18 certificate film.
So, we need to make sure we choose a specific target audience to make sure the film meets it's certificate age rating.
Horror genre timeline Here is a link to a time line created by my group member Beth, on dipity, that documents the horror genre and it's development over time. This helped me gain more insight into the genre as a whole and it's also given me further knowledge of horror films I can research before creating my final project.
My group member Amy has created a collage on the website Photovisi to look at iconography associated with the horror genre.
Horror iconography usually follows a pattern, using the same or similar iconography in order to make the genre identifiable to the audience. This means it makes it easier to label who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist through the iconography associated with them. Iconography can be a symbols that are featured in all horror movies. These include:
The Haunted House
Symbols of Death
Disfigured face
Masks
The screaming victim ('The final girl').
Murder weapon aka: Knife, meat cleaver, chainsaw etc.
Binary opposites of good vs evil.
Dark places.
Blood and bloody body parts.
Director Research:
My group member Beth also chose to research a famous horror films conventional to the genre. She chose to look at Wes Craven, as he has directed many famous horror films including many of the Scream series and Nightmare On Elm Street series. She has chose to answer the question in the form of an online slideshow made on the website,Zenfolio to demonstrate further research into our genre.
This genre research is very important in the creation of our project as it allowed us to become familiar with the conventions within the horror genre. Also some of the research helped us think about what kind of conventions we can include in our opening sequence and also what kind of horror film we want to create.
My group member Beth made this storyboard on the website StoryboardThat.com, for our preliminary task. She chose to use this website as it allowed us to create our storyboard online, something we have never used before. Storyboarding is a key process as it allows our group to plan and visualise how we will film our product shot by shot. The story board acts as a guideline in the filming process too, it's something we can refer back to to make sure we have all the shots needed in our task.
Script for the preliminary task:
[Character A walks into the room through the door. Character B is sitting at a table alone.]
Character B: Hey! You alright?
[Character A pulls out a chair across from B]
Character A: Hey, yeah. Why didn't you come to my party last week?
Character B: Nobody invited me. I thought it was weird you didn't invite me but, I didn't want to say anything.
Character A: Oh, sorry I thought you knew.
Character B: That's okay. I'll come to the next one
Character A: Yeah. I've got to go now, so bye.
Character B: Alright, see you later.
[Character A gets up from her chair and walks out of the room, opening the door on her way out, into the hallway.]
I've embedded a video of my preliminary task, where shot reverse shot, the 180 degree rule and match on action are all included in the clip. My group member Beth and I took the role of filming in the task and our group member Amy edited most of the footage. The clip features someone walking into a room and sitting down on a chair, engaging in a conversation with their friend and then walking out of the room. The preliminary task was a good opportunity to practice filming with a variety of techniques within one scene.
Task Evaluation:
I've embedded a Prezi presentation that my group has created together which presents a written evaluation of our preliminary task.
Match On Action
Today, I learnt about the match on action technique and was later assigned a filming activity involving the rule. Match on action is a filming technique involving filming an action being carried out from two different perspective on camera. However, the two shots need to look continuous and run smoothly from one another. For example someone may be denoted walking into a room and going in for a hug with a character and in a second shot the characters are shown hugging each other from a side angle.So, match on action helps create a sense of continuity and realistic movement.
Activity
My group was given the task of demonstrating Match on Action, by filming someone walking up a pair of stairs. Before filming my group took some time out to plan how we could incorporate match on action within the scenario. We sketched the idea of using two different cameras to film with, one at the bottom of the stairs and one at the top of the stairs to help us capture someone walking up the stairs continuously. When planning we needed to make sure that the camera's wouldn't be visible in each others shots. So, it was decided that one camera would be put at the top of the stairs and the other would be at the bottom of the stairs; allowing someone walking up the stairs to be captured from a low and high angle.
Within the filming task my role involved filming the main character walking up the stairs from a low angle. I had to make sure my camera was angled correctly and framed the character clearly walking up the stairs. Whilst filming I had to take into account the lighting of my settings when angling my camera.
Evaluation
The simplest part of the activity was filming. It wasn't too hard as it only involved making sure the main character was walking up the stairs at a realistic pace as well as making sure this action was clearly visible within the two cameras. The only small problem faced when filming was the camera's being visible in the shots from the two different angles. But, this was easy to overcome once the camera was placed at the correct angle. In addition, it was also quite simple to plan the scenario and divide the roles between the group making sure that the task was carried out equally.
On the other hand, the most challenging part of the day was editing the scene so it had a realistic and continuous outcome. It was difficult to edit the clips in order to make it appear that the main character was walking up the stairs in a fluid movement. This involved me being very precise when cutting parts of the film, making sure that the scene didn't have major jumps or over lap.
It was hard to make sure I was cutting the right section of the clip making sure that the number of stairs shown when looking at the clip from a low angle and a high angle were the same. This caused me to be very exact and critical using iMovie.
At first I kept on cutting the scene inaccurately, denoting different step numbers on screen when trying to merge the two angle's of the main character walking up the stairs. This mistake whilst editing caused the film as a whole to look jumpy. Hence, the action of the character walking up the stairs didn't look very realistic. To overcome this issue, I found it was useful to slow down the two clips within iMovie and watch them in slow motion. This allowed me to clearly pin point where I was making my mistakes when cutting and editing the sequence. Furthermore, I found that muting the sound when editing on iMovie made the the editing process much easier. At first I began to get very overwhelmed with making the action flow from the two shots, becoming very critical. I found that even after editing the clip well when slowing it down and being very accurate there was still something off about the clip. However, after watching it numerous times and finding flaws I decided to turn the sound off and watch the clip. Doing this allowed me to realise that the match on action was actually accurate. So, the sound from the clips clouded my judgment slightly.
This was a good point to learn from whilst editing, and muting the sound of a clip as well as slowing down a sequence may help me see things from a better perspective in future.
If I had a chance to do the task again I would try to change the positioning of the high angle camera. When watching the clip back from a critical perspective I noticed that from the high angle camera, the character walking up the stairs began to get cut out of the shot. The character's feet slightly got cropped out of the frame. To fix this issue I would have tried tilting the camera at various angles whilst it was on a tripod in hopes of finding a better angle framing the character walking up the stairs. Or, I could have tried increasing or decreasing the height of the tripod or even moving the tripod back to catch a better angle. Moving the camera to a better position would help create a better frame and hence cause the match on action to be much smoother on screen.
Overall from completing the task, I've learnt a very important filming skill. Match on action can be used in various scenario's where a character is moving, helping to create a realistic film and a smooth transition between shots. So, I can further apply this technique in my future filming tasks and my final project.
The 180 degree rule is a filming rule that states that a camera should remain on one side of an imaginary line. The line has to be horizontal to the camera's viewpoint in an establishing shot. The rule helps to create continuity in a film. For example in a conversation between two characters the rule can easily be applied. When filming a conversation you have to make sure you stay on the same side of an imaginary straight line to make sure that the characters being filmed are framed on the same sides in scenes allowing their eye lines to match. Breaking the rule can cause confusion as characters will look like they looking away from one another even thought their dialogue is between the two of them. Hence breaking the rule would create a sense of a false reality, considering that in most cases people share eye contact when talking to each other. If you want to break the rule and cross the line you must include the movement of the camera over the line within the edit.
Shot Reverse Shot
The Shot reverse shot allows viewers to see characters expressions easily within a conversation. Its an editing technique where the camera isn't seen moving between shots and frames characters faces,yet quick cuts are used whilst editing. Therefore, creating pace and highlighting each characters reactions and emotions within a clip clearly to viewers. So, using shot reverse shot can be key when trying to portray a mood to viewers.
An example of shot reverse shot could be when two characters have a conversation. Character A may be framed in a shot talking and then the clip may cut to a shot of character B replying to character A. The clip may then cut back to character A further responding to character B. One of the characters is shown off-screen when the other character is denoted talking. This suggests that the actors are looking at one another whilst talking, which helps create a sense of continuity.
Script
Below, I've created a script to use for a demonstration of shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule in a filming activity.
Character A: "Hey, how were your lessons?"
Character B: "They were good thanks, I don't have any homework today. How about you?"
Character A: "Hmm, they were okay can't wait to get home. I got a detention in English today."
Character B: "Oh really? That sucks!"
Character A: "Yeah oh well I don't like English anyway."
Character B: "Do you want to go McDonald's after school then?"
Character A: "Oh yeah! I could do with a burger!"
Character B: "Mmmmm lets go then."
Evaluation
On one hand a lot went well when filming the activity in relation to using the the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot. Both techniques are used very accurately within the clip. This is clear as both characters are shown facing each other when exchanging dialogue which meets the 180 degree rule. Characters also stay on the same side of the frames throughout the clip, and don't suddenly move which also relates to the rule being followed. In addition, the conversation was broken down successfully into two perspectives and then edited within iMovie to denote the characters dialogues being cut back and forth from one another.
On the other hand, there were also some flaws that should be overcome when filming in the future.
One of the issues within the clip was bad lighting. The lighting within the scene has an orange tint to it and looks quite unnatural in a school setting. To overcome this issue, I would take lighting into more consideration when choosing a location to film in. Making sure that both natural and unnatural lighting is more practical. In addition, lighting could be improved by using false lighting whilst filming.
Another aspect of the video that could have been improved was the pauses within shot reverse shot. Characters can be seen straying eye contact away from each other before cuts. Causing the conversation to look forced and unnatural. Hence contradicting the idea of filming with continuity in mind. So to avoid this from happening in future I would pay closer attention to cutting parts of a clips when editing. As well as focusing on editing, I would make it clear to actors that they should keep natural eye contact within a conversation even when they are waiting for a reply, as it will make the editing process easier and more continuous.
Further more, within the shot reverse shot the characters are shown through a side profile where as they could have been looking slightly towards the camera more to make it look like the camera was positioned to meet characters eye lines. By facing slightly towards the camera characters facial expressions would be more dominant within the conversation. To overcome this problem in future, I should try to angle the camera's so they follow characters eye lines.
Hi, my name is Simran Takhar a sixteen year old student, candidate number 3206, and I'm currently studying AS media at Swakeleys Sixth Form. This blog will help build up part of my foundation portfolio based on creating a films opening credits and opening scene. My blog will also feature videos, presentations and images of my class and home work through out the course of my taking my AS. I have limited media knowledge so far as I've only taken a short course in media as part of my GCSE's. However it is a subject that interests me as it can be closely related to Art and English. Communicating through film is something that excited and interests me; I'm looking forward to the learning new things and overcoming challenges within studying AS Media Studies.
