Arranging our Actress

These are the text messages from our actress Bethan, who plays 'Mrs Hobbs', to organise when she is free to film.

Account of re-filming

After showing our opening scene to our class, we had the feedback the last shot of Sarah putting her hand on the window wasn't as effective as we had hoped. Therefore, as a group, we decided to re film the last shot with Sarah behind Mrs Hobbs when she is looking out the window for her daughter who is no longer there then as the camera focuses back on Mrs Hobbs, Sarah is stood behind her. This is going to be the first introduction to the paranormal sub genre in our opening.

We are going to find a time that the location of our filming is free and when our actress' are free as well as leaving enough time to edit the re filming clips in.

Scheduled re-film: 8th of December 

Feedback for Brief

I sent the link to our opening to some of my friends who are within our target audience age range to get their feedback and point of view, so we could make adjustments accordingly. 

When we re film, we will change her mis en scene, as it can be improved and made to seem more realistic. Also, in the editing process, it is important that we match the sound effects to the action to make it seem more continuous and enhance the narrative, rather than distract the audience. 

With this feedback, we will take on board that the credits need to be on screen for and make sure any dialogue is heard, by turning the volume up on their audio in the editing process . Also, we will ensure we keep the shots that work well and possibly add more props if they are accessible.

Rough Cut for 'Telepathy'

Sound for Our Brief

In our opening scene, I gathered music and sound effects from 'YouTube Audio Library'. This ensured that the music I used was free and not copyrighted.
I used dark music for the opening and this type of music throughout to create tension. Also, sound effects from footsteps to cutting vegetables were put into the edit.
After adding all of the clips to 'We Video' I watched it through and wrote down all of the sound effects I needed to put in and ticked them off as I added them:

We found music on YouTube that we feel would suit our opening but we needed to ask for permission. Phoebe emailed the owner of the YouTube channel with it on and this was the reply:

To find sound effects I used https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

Distribution and Ownership

The ownership of a film can greatly affect the distribution of a film. For example, a film that is distributed by an oligopoly, they have access to a higher budget therefore can have a more successful distribution as they can market their film to a wider audience. However, a film that is owned by a smaller company, ie an independent film company as they tend to distribute their film in a different way, due to them not having a high budget to market their film to a global audience. 

Jurassic World, a Universal film, working in synergy with Legendary, had a budget of $150 million and was able to market their film by creating a website that people could navigate a virtual park, which was a successful marketing technique as it kept the audience engaged in the film in the lead up to the release. Furthermore, they also had a hashtag on social media of #jurassicworld. This enabled the film to be reached out to a global audience as people shared and uploaded their experiences with the film. Also, Chris Pratt, a Hollywood actor in the film could share and interact with fans and build up a following for this film due to his other famous work in Guardians of the Galaxy that has a similar demographic. Their distribution and marketing was successful as they made just over $1 billion in profit.

A film that is produced by an independent film company like Rooke has a smaller budget for their films, therefore can not market their film as globally. For example, A Field in England is produced by Rooke and distributed by Film 4 who generally show smaller company films as a way to give back to the industry. A Field in England's budget was £316,000 and was helped with funds from the BFI and National Lottery. However, with this film being owned by an independent film company, they more creative freedom, this being exemplified with the genre of this film being a folk horror. Although our opening is a horror, we decided not to make it so niche as we want to appeal to a wider audience, despite being a very low budget production. 

A Field in England managed to make back their budget in profit which could be due to their marketing of a website and film posters. Although the film was only viewed in three cinemas across the UK, a day and date strategy was used in order to get the film out to a wider audience. It was released on DVD, YouTube and Channel 4 at the same time, which enabled the film to be more accessible and decrease piracy.

This research helped with the opening of my production as it showed how films with higher budgets, tend to be very successful in box office as they are able to market their film to a global audience. On the other hand, a film produced by a smaller company is less likely to be successful as they cannot market their film as much due to the budget which is heavily influenced by the ownership of the production. 

Woman In Black Textual Analysis

'Woman in Black' was released in 2012, distributed by Hammer Film Productions and is about a haunted Manor 'Eel Marsh Manor'. The rating of this film is a 12A, their target audience was around this age, however, the audience of this film was older than expected.

The opening of this film involves three young girls playing with their dollies and tea cups when suddenly they get up and jump out of the window. It is then revealed that there is a figure at the back of the room that they are playing in, that consequently could have caused them to act abnormally.

The camera work in the opening of 'The Woman in Black' makes it clear to the audience the abnormal behaviour of the three girls. This is because there are mid shots of the girls playing and close ups of the dollies as tea cups are brought to their mouths. 

When the atmosphere changes, there are close up of the dollies and tea cups again, but rather than the young girls pressing down their clothes and giving them tea cups, the girls are destroying them. This significantly is shown with close up shots of them stepping on the tea pots and a dolly head, smashing them in the pursuit to get to the window in a possessed manner. 

There is no use of hand held camera shots in this opening. This creates the effect that there is no emotional attachment as the audience do not feel what the characters are feeling. It also can connote how it is another era and is a reflection rather than being a representation of the present day. 

There are no credits in the opening of this film, the actions begins straight away, which grips the audience. The editing is also slow paced and when the girls are walking towards the window, there is use of slow motion to build tension and leave the audience to question what they are going to do, before the characters confirm their suspicions of them jumping out of the window. 

The sound in the opening of 'Women in Black' conforms to the horror genre and as it is eerie. The music is strings but what sounds like a music box playing with it, this relates to young girls and iconography of them as well as sounding creepy and haunting. When the girls become possessed, church bells sound connoting death and foreshadowing what is going to happen as they continue to be heard till they jump out of the window, which end the climactic tension with a loud scream. 

The mis en scene in the opening spark the connection to a horror film as there are young girls playing with dolls, a common prop that is used in horror films as a stimulus for the horror. This relates to the 'Reception Theory' as the audience will be dominant to this message and therefore make the connection to this iconography. The costumes in this opening, represent the era as they are not clothes that would be worn in the present day by children to play. Horror films often set films in the past as they are dark and have old manors in them. 

This helps with the research into our opening as it is evident that the costumes give clues of the time period in which the film was set. Also, the slow paced editing gives a climactic effect. Furthermore, having sound that correlates with what is happening in the narrative, engages the audience. 

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment

Production Title: Telepathy

Producer Names(s): Isabella Chudley, Aimée Ellerton, Phoebe Menear

Date of Risk Assessment: October 2016

Hazard	People who may be harmed	Property which may be damaged	Risk controls in place	Risk Assessment (low, moderate, high, extreme)
Candle burning on the shelf	Anyone near to the flames	The shelf and surrounding furniture, depending if flame gets out of hand	The candle is in a sturdy holder and is supervised	Low
Bethan cutting herself on the kitchen knife	Bethan who is chopping the potatoes		Bethan watches what she is doing the whole time and doesn’t cut the potatoes too thinly and the kitchen knife is stored away when not in use	Moderate
Slipping in the mud when running out of the shot to get the swing to swing	Phoebe as she is the one who operated the swing	Her clothing and shoes	She doesn’t rush and step in muddy areas or puddles	Low
Boiling water when cooking the potatoes	The supervisor of the potatoes, Aimée  and Bethan who is puts the chopped potatoes into  the pan	Surrounding equipment that could get wet	Everyone in the room doesn’t stand too close to the pot when it is boiling over. Bethan is careful when putting the potatoes in the pot	Moderate
The tripod being tripped over and wires have trip hazard	Anyone in the room (Phoebe, Isabella, Aimée, Bethan and Emily)	The tripod or camera	Everyone in the room is aware when equipment is moving so know not to clear the way. One person is stood at tripod at a time to ensure less risk of tripping. Only one wire is used, if necessary.	Moderate

My To Do List

I created this to ensure all of the posts that I wanted to have on my blog were included and I also put the day some days of the week next to the blog post, to vary the work out over a week.

Weather Forecast for Filming

The weather is said to be dry and cloudy when we are set to film which is the 22nd of October with average temperatures of 7 degrees celcius. This is ideal for our filming as we do not want it to be sunny, as this won't relate to our genre. Also, if it was raining, there would be limitations to our filming and may have to reschedule.

Filming Diary

These photos were taken on the set of our filming, on the 22nd of October, where we managed to get all of our footage filmed.

The photo above shows our set up for the beginning of our filming. We used a lamp to give better lighting and a tripod to ensure our shots weren't shaky. In the photo, Isabella (the girl with her blonde hair down), is holding her phone, this is because at some points, we needed to use the torch from her iPhone for better lighting.

The two photos above are of the set of the first scene where Sarah, the young girl in our brief, is looking at old photos of her and her twin, who has mysteriously passed away. We chose to capture the scene like this as it shows her looking at the photo whilst having the old photos of them as a family in the background of the shot.

Before these photos were taken, to begin the credits, we used a panning shot to show the family photos. This is because the first photo that is shown is of a family of four and the second photo shows a family of three, representing the loss of a twin in the family and how this plays a significant role in the film. Finally, with the panning shot, the camera focuses on a newspaper front cover of Sarah and her twin, Hannah, confirming to the audience that the twin has died. We decided to use this shot as the shot will then fade into the same photo that Sarah is holding in the image above.

This photo is taken in the kitchen where many shots were taken. As you can see in the shot, there are kitchen knives. We chose this as it is iconography to our genre. 

This photo was taken outside of the house of our recce, The swing is relevant for our opening as it creates fear and suspense if it is swinging unassisted and important when revealing how Sarah has been acting peculiar.

Location Recce

This is the location of our filming. We decided to film it in a house as the feedback from our questionnaire voted highly for houses to be a scary location for horror films. Having a horror film in a house can create fear for the audience as they may think that paranormal activities can happen in their house too.

However, we are going to ensure that we film at this time of day that was taken in these photos to achieve the right lighting.

This is the kitchen that we filmed in:

Job Roles

My Role - During the filming of our horror opening, I was the main camera woman taking the shots and controlling the camera.
The difficulty that came with this is that there was pressure on me to capture the right shots, to have the camera in focus and make sure the camera was placed correctly. However, this was overcome as we worked together to check that all of the shots were in the right place and everything was in the frame that needed to be in it. Also, as a group, we relied on the storyboard to make sure we had all of the shots.


Phoebe - Phoebe was in control of the lighting whilst we was filming and also checking that our storyboard was used effectively in capturing the shots and the placement of props. Also, Phoebe's role was to ensure all of the props were placed appropriately and that the mis en scene fitted the genre.


Isabella - Isabella's role was write up the storyboard, with this, she drew and wrote an explanation that we had collaboratively came up with for our opening. Also, Isabella's role was to find a suitable location to film and get our actors for the opening. This became challenging at some points as it was hard to find a time when everyone was free to film. However, we overcome this and found a date that everyone could attend to film the opening of our horror film. Moreover, she also created the newspaper that will be in our opening to initiate how one of the twins had been lost.

Certification and Distribution Research

This is the list of the age ratings given by the 'British Board of Film Classification' :

U - Suitable for all 

PG - Parental Guidance

12A - Cinema release, 12 years and over

12 - Video release, 12 years and over

15 - 15 years and older

18 - Suitable for adults only

The British Board of Film Classification was founded in  1912 and is a non-governmental organisation founded by the film industry. It distributes the national classification and censorship of films shown at cinemas and at video works.

They will watch the film and judge what rating it should be given through the 'Classification Guidelines'. These guidelines, protect children from harmful content and to give information to the viewers that they might need before watching the film or video.

Woman in Black Certification

The horror film 'The Woman in Black' is certfied at a 15, however, after releasing the film, the main age range of the audience was between 30 - 40 years old, which is older than the producers original target audience of 15-25. The older audience that watched the film, does not reflect the films' certification as they had targeted their film at a younger audience, and marketed the film to attract this particular audience. For example, the marketers for this film used social networking and viral marketing to increase popularity of this film. This targets a specific audience as stereotypically, young people are more involved in social media than people who are older.

The first trailer of 'The Woman in Black' was shown at a ComiCon in London, which is a convention dedicated to comic books, films, TV and games. At this convention, there is a range of ages, therefore the exposure to this trailer may have lead to a range of ages wanting to watch the full film rather than the specific target audience that 'The Woman in Black' had in mind.

The trailer of this film was also played in a few showings of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' in July 2011. The main actor in 'The Woman in Black', Daniel Radcliffe, stars in 'Harry Potter', again, the 'Harry Potter' collection is watched by a range of audiences. However, a minute long teaser was released on MTV, a channel that primarily is watched by a younger audience, similar to the target audience of 'The Woman in Black'.

'The Woman in Black's' target audience wasn't as widely watched by this age range, therefore when they came out with the sequel: ' Woman in Black: Angel of Death', it had a lower certification of a 12A, to target their audience more. Also, 'Angel of Death', was set 40 years after the hauntings that happened at 'El Marsh House' in the previous film, reaching out to their target audience in order to make it seem more modern.

Photoshop

 For our opening, we are going to create family photos to put in to frames. To do this, I used Photoshop and here are the screenshots from this process:
The functions on the left hand side were used to trim around the images to copy and past them onto the same background (done by the navigation on the right hand side).
To make me more knowledgeable on Adobe's Photoshop, I watched some tutorials on YouTube to help me in any areas I was unsure of.

Character Analysis

The characters in our opening scene of a horror film are:




SARAH HOBBS

She is a dark haired young girl who is 10 years old. She is fairly small, around 4"11 and is a twin to Hannah Hobbs, in the film, recently died. Sarah has not taken her sisters death very well and morns for her sister. In the opening scene, she is wearing a long white dress to give a sinister effect and contrast the fact that white represents purity and she is not pure, like a child stereo typically is in a horror film.





MRS HOBBS

This character plays the mother of Sarah and Hannah. She is a 30 year old woman who is married to Steve Hobbs. In her free time, when she is not working part time in a bank, she enjoys spending time with her family, going for walks in the park and cooking dinner for them. She also enjoys watching crime programmes, documentaries on criminals and quiz shows. However, she dislikes noisy and rowdy children.  

HANNAH HOBBS

She is the twin to Sarah who has died suddenly. She and Sarah were very close and shared a bond that made them almost inseparable. It is questionable as to how she died, but she is deeply missed by her sister, Sarah. Hannah enjoyed playing dolls and tea parties with Sarah.

STEVE HOBBS

Steve is a 37 year old man who works in the city. He is usually busy with work and not home often due to trips away. Therefore, Mrs Hobbs and him don't get to see each other too often. He is a collector of old videos and tapes that he likes to look back on. Steve is quite a quiet reserved man. 

Paranormal Activity Textual Analysis

How is the horror genre portrayed in Paranormal Activity?

How is the genre conveyed in Paranormal Activity?

The genre is portrayed in numerous ways through the micro elements in Paranormal Activity. It is a horror film and the extract is taken from the opening, which helps with the research into my own opening.

The first opening shot is a zoom out with a camera filming VHS; this is of him filming the television, making it seem as if he is testing out the camera that he has just brought. This makes the audience feel as if they have videos similar to this and could lead them to question whether they have any peculiar footage. Also, it connotes a sense of realism, as it makes the audience feel as if they are in on the action. This is also emphasised with the handheld shot as it makes the audience feel as if they are there in on the action with the characters and therefore you feel their tension and emotions. The wide shots in the opening of Paranormal Activity create suspense for the audience as they are looking in the background purposefully, to see if they can see anything illusive.

The editing in this extract creates a sense of realism for the audience. This is with the text shown at the beginning that is giving thanks to the families and police force, foreshadowing that something serious is going to happen in the film. It also leaves the audience to wonder how real this situation was, if they are giving thanks, and therefore making them feel fearful as they may wonder if this is a true story, suggesting this could happen to them to. This relates to the genre as it makes the audience feel scared. Furthermore, there are no fading shots, making the editing face past and as if it is moving along quickly, leading the audience to believe that the inevitability of the horror, is on the cusp of happening at any point.

There is no Foley or soundtrack in the opening of Paranormal Activity further enhancing the ideology that this film is all organic and filmed by these two characters. This also creates realism as there is no anti-climax’s due to the music’s tension and therefore any sounds that the characters hear within the house are emphasised, making the audience feel as if they are there too. The dialogue between the man and woman also foreshadow the events to come, this is with the man’s line of: ‘going to film whatever happens and then when any weird shit goes on, we’ll be in a perfect position to capture it’. This indicates to the audience that they are awaiting any acts of abnormality like paranormal, the sub-genre of this film, generating fear as the audience will be watching out for anything abnormal.

            The mis en scene in this extract suggests the unknown; this is with the dark door ways that are upstairs for the rooms. Each time the woman walks into the darkness, it anticipates that something is going to come out of the darkness, creating tension as it is unknown what is in the darkness and is stereotypical in a horror film, that the paranormal happens in the dark, relating to the genre. Moreover, whilst the man is talking in the kitchen in the opening, he is making gestures with a knife. This is key iconography of a horror film as it connotes violence, especially as he is making a slicing gesture. This could suggest that this knife is going to be used further on in the film against the acts of abnormality, creating fear and anticipation for the audience.

            To conclude, the genre in Paranormal Activity, is conveyed through the different micro elements, shown through the camera work and editing and enhanced with lighting, props and dialogue between the two characters. All of which creates fear for the audience, which relates to the genre of this film.

Props and Costumes

The props and costumes for the opening scene

Props:
Family photos' (created using photo shop)
Photo frames
Newspaper
Swing
Sofa
Shelf
Chair
Phone
Kitchen knives
Stove
Saucepan
Potatoes



Costumes:
SARAH - Wearing a long white dress with black tights and black shoes. Her hair will be down and natural.
MS HOBBS - Wearing her work attire: smart top and trousers with black patent shoes. Her hair is up in a neat bun and wearing minimal makeup.

Producers

How we came up with our producer:

To come up with the producer suitable for our opening of a horror film, we researched into the producers for New Line Cinema (the distributors we will work in synergy with to produce our film).

Robert Shaye is the founder for New Line Cinema and as I researched further, I discovered he had produced 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare', which are two popular horror films.

Screenplay for our Opening Scene

FADE IN:

VHS VIDEOS PLAYED OF TWO GIRLS

FADE TO: LIVING ROOM - DAY

A living room setting with an arrangement of family photos on shelves with a chair beside the shelf with a stack of newspapers and the top one headlined ‘Twin Girl Found Dead’ with more information below and a photo of her and her twin

DISSOLVE TO:

The same picture but in a photo frame held by a young girl, SARAH, who is wearing a dress and tights.

SARAH is looking at the photo in the frame.

MOTHER, a fairly tall woman with medium brown hair in her 30s, walks over to SARAH and rests her colourless hand on her daughters shoulder.

MOTHER

She’s in a better place

Her MOTHER leaves whilst SARAH doesn’t keep her eyes off of the photo

SARAH places the photo frame back on the shelf. Takes a few steps  away and the photo frame falls unassisted from the shelf onto the floor.

FADES TO BLACK

FADES IN: KITCHEN – DAY

MOTHER is boiling potatoes and it is clear that she has used sharp knives to do this as they are out on the counter.

SARAH is outside in the garden.

CONSERVATORY

MOTHER sits down in the conservatory with her cup of tea leaving the potatoes boiling.

SARAH is facing a swing that is swinging by on its own while SARAH talks to it

The MOTHER then picks up her phone to text her husband STEVE

‘I’m worried about SARAH’

MOTHER looks up from her phone and SARAH has suddenly appeared in front of the window of the conservatory the MOTHER is sat at.

END OF OPENING

New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema was founded in 1967 and is known for producing films with both a niche and mainstream audience.

New Line Cinema became a part of Warner Bros in 2008, who has vertical integration across production, marketing, distribution and exhibition which helps the performance of films and generates a higher budget as they own all stages of production. New Line Cinema also has subsidiaries which are New Line Television and New Line Distribution. 

It was founded by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne and Shaye is renowned in the horror genre as he has produced films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and New Nightmare, which is partly why we chose New Line Cinema as the producer, as it has produced popular horror films. 

Since 2008, its success has rapidly increased with productions like The Hobbit Trilogy, The Conjuring 2 (a horror genre film), Central Intelligence and Lights Out (a horror film).

Storyboard for Opening Scene

Ideas for our Film Title

We brainstormed some title ideas for different names of our opening. We went with 'Telepathy' as we could incorporate the rope and we would be able to animate the text how we wanted it in the editing process, whereas the others would be harder to animate. 

Afterwards, it was decided how we was going to show the title of our film in the opening to make it most effective. This is what we decided:

Opening Credits for Horror Films

The opening credits in Blade (1996), fit with the genre of the film as they are red and looked as if they have been handwritten, making it seem more realistic and less computerised.

In our opening, we wanted to incorporate a font that conformed to our narrative. With this, we are going to select a font that looks most like handwriting. This is because we have a child that is the main source of horror and the font we use could be most commonly associated with their handwriting.

Insidious (2010) used panning in their opening with no credits and this was effective as it made it seem as if horror was going to appear at any moment. In our opening we are using a panning shot, however, due to the timing, we decided hat it would be best for our opening if we included some credits in our panning shots.

Camera Shots

Depth of Field

This refers to the area in front of the camera that is sharp and is done by adjusting the focus on the camera. It is used to draw the audience's attention to a certain part of the frame. 

The depth of a field can either be deep or shallow,

Aerial Shot

This is an extremely high angle shot, that is generally taken from a helicopter. In a film, it generally establishes the location and setting in which it is taking place and creates This can also be referred to as 'birds eye view'.

Establishing Shot

This shot is similar to the aerial shot, in that it establishes the location and is generally the first shot of a new scene. It is a very wide shot or extreme wide shot. 

Hand Held Camera

This is when the camera is held by the camera operator and gives the effect that the audience is in on the action and seeing what the character is seeing. 

Tracking Shot

This is when the camera moves along the character/ object it is filming. It is commonly used to capture the moving action, like a chase scene. 

Long Shot

This shot generally is categorised as 'life size' in that it shows the full length human body whilst there is still lots of background still in the shot.

Medium Shot

This is most commonly used for exchanging of dialogue as it is from the characters waist/knees up. There is minimal going on in the background.

Close Up Shot

This shows very little of the background, but more of a face or detail of a mis en scene. The shot makes the object appear bigger as it magnifies it. It can be used to show an expression of a character or let the audience get a closer view of them making them feel comfortable or uncomfortable.