Aura Audience Feedback

We decided the best and quickest way to get feedback for our film was to hold a cinema session with the year 11 year group at our school. This was very good as we got to ask our own questions about our film to our audience and we could match this to our given criteria to see if we fulfilled it. It was also good as it enabled up to get our film out to some of our target audience (16 year old boys) in year 11 and see what they thought of it.

Aura - Our Final Horror Film Opening

Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 6 (Part 2)

I have had to have two separate videos for question six as my software would not let me place the pictures of the top of my video recording so i have placed all of the pictures in a separate video.
These are the logos of many technologies i have used and also pictures taken during the process of editing.

Evaluation Question 5

Question 4 Evaluation

This is my answer to question 4 'Who would be the audience for my media product' he is a real person who had been questioned by myself.

Evaluation Questions 2 & 3

This is the answer to my media evaluation questions 2 and 3.
I have tired to use a varitey of digital media hense these questions uploaded to the up and coming sound site. - soundcloud.com

Question 1 Evaluation

Evaluation Question 1

This video is part of my question one answer to my evalution and could not be put as one video due to the format it was made in.

The Nursery Rhyme

We have decided that in our opening dream sequence we want to have a nursery rhyme being sung in the background but with our own horror twist on it. We looked at various nursery rhymes and tried to see which one fit the most and the rhyme 'Row Your Boat' seemed to fit the most with the scenes and the storyline as its implied through the opening that he has drowned. To add our 'horror twist' to it we decided to change the lyrics from the original and also we slowed it down to give it creepy effect.
We used original sound as we record group member Emma to sing it.
The lyrics have been changed to link to death to give it the horror aspect.
We chose to use a nursery rhyme also as its symbolic for innocence which in the end we find out the boy is and also reflects youth and an audience can relate to it easily as millions of kids have heard of the classic rhyme.

Original lyrics:

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream,

Merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream.

Row row row your boat

If you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream

OUR LYRICS

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream,
Merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream.
Row row row your boat, gently down the stream,
Don't forget to watch your back, no one will hear you scream.

Behind The Scenes

Shooting Schedule

Here is our shooting schedule created by our group member Kelsey Duffy. The schedule is divided up into 3 different days of shooting this is because we wanted to make sure that we checked through our clips and take the time so that we were happy with the shots. We also separated the shooting into four different blocks to ensure that all filming went as quickly as possible and also as smoothly to give us the time to edit our clip. The shooting schedule blocks gave us a target and a deadline to meet so we could stay as focused as possible.

Shooting Blocks

      1. Dream sequence

        2.Boy in the house

        3.Newspaper delivery

                4.Waking up from the dream

Saturday- Shooting Blocks 1 and 2

10.00- arrive at location and set up props and equipment.

10.30-12.00- Filming

12.00-1.00- Lunch break

1.00-4.00- Filming

4.00-4.30- Pack up equipment

Sunday-Shooting Block 4

9.00- arrive at location and set up props and equipment.

9.30- Filming

11.30-12.30 Lunch break

12.30-2.30- Filming

2.30- Pack up equipment

Wednesday- Shooting Block 3

3.30-arrive at location and set up props and equipment

4.00- 6.30- Filming

6.30- Pack up equipment

Final Locations

Here are some pictures with annotations of our final location where we chose to film Aura.
The final location was in the village of Langford, Bedforshire.
As the members of my group all lived in different places this enabled us to come togeter with different ideas on where to film and after much research we found these locations (See locations video)
Pictures created by Kelsey Duffy.

Auras Final Actors

 Here is an image of Callum Duffy an 14 year old boy from Baldock, Hertfordshire. He will play our antagonist, Stephen. He has had make up on his face to dirty it to represent the fact he is a lost child as well as the messy look hair.
He is wearing a dirtied white tee as previously stated and black school trousers. He is also wearing the walking boots as stated in the previous post.

Here is an image of Jo Mance a 17 year old girl from Baldock, Hertfordshire. She will play our protagonist and as previously stated she has minimal make up, wearing a vest top, cardigan and skinny jeans with slippers. 

Our Acctor and Actresses Costume

Character/Actor Research

Charcater reaearch from zakrodgers

Aura - Target Audience

Target Audience 

 

We have decided as a group that we are going to keep our same target audience that we had for our preliminary task.

This is because the audience research carried out was accurate and correct and also very time consuming.

As we based our preliminary task on our audience research and created a  clip form a horror movie as the task it was appropriate to keep the same audience research for our main as this would still be relevant for our main task. See previous post for all about Target audiences.

As a recap;

Target Gender; Male
Target Age; 16-22



Aura Animatics

This is our video animatics, we have used this to give us an idea how our film is going to look and also the type of camera movement.

Aura Storyboard

Here is the images of our final storyboard and how we plan to take each shot and what shot type it is.

Why Lionsgate?

As a group we have researched many different film institutions both large and small, we have come to the conclusions that Lionsgate would be the most appropriate institution to represent our film. Lionsgate is a rapidly growing and becoming largely successful as a media institution, not only in films but in the music and television industry also. Over the past year Lionsgate has built itself up as a company as they recently had a massive success with the Hunger Games series which has attracted many more film makers to be part of their productions. We agreed that they would be a good institution to represents us as well as our own media institution 'Pandemic Pictures' as one of its main business objectives it to grow as a company which could mean our film will one day be part of a major institution. Another reason which attracted us to Lionsgate was the fact that they have grossed more than $2.5 billion last year (2012) with the company also having an 11.6% share in the American box office market meaning our horror film could be a global success as well as a domestic one. Lions gate has a large portfolio of films ranging from slasher horror to romantic comedy.
One of Lionsgate's most recent horror films has been the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake in 3D which to date has made $38, 700, 255 which we hope that our film will be just as successful if not more.

Film Institute Logo Research Mood board

Here is a research mood board of some major film institutes and there logos.
I have selected the major film institutes logos as a basis for designing and building our own film institution 'Pandemic Pictures'.
This has given us some ideas on how we want our institute to be presented and also that the image that goes with the name of the institute should be linked.

Setting research and ideas

As a group we sat down and discussed possible towns and villages where we could film our outside film scenes. One of my group members suggested that we film in her home village of Langford in Bedforshire. She also suggested that we film the house scenes at her house as she had recently moved in so hadn't had extensive decoration done.

We decided that we would go to Langford one Tuesday afternoon and walk around the countryside to find the best possible place to film outside.
We spent 3 hours walking around though the village in the winter, we came across many obstacles such as flooded paths and extremely thick sinking mud. It properly wasn't a very good idea to wear our sixth form suits and smart clothing! However this seemed to be a very useful idea as we found our perfect setting to film the dream section of the movie, we found that the wooded area was dense however not overally dense which would enable good visabliy. We especially liked the loction where there was circle of rocks and then a giant owl carved into the wood, we felt this would look like a ceremony ring and would fit in with our sub genre of psychological horror.

Consent Form For Under - Age Actors/Actresses

We had to produce this consent form to get permission from our two main actors as they are both aged 16 or below. Callum who is going to play the young child 'Stephen' is 14 and Jo whose is to play the female character 'Sam' is 16. This permission form will be sent to both the actor and actresses home actress and we shall wait for their reply before shooting begins.

AURA

The title of our film, this was thought of by myself throgh a eureka moment. The offical definition of Aura is:

1.The distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place:the ceremony retains an aura of mystery

• 2. (in spiritualism and some forms of alternative medicine) a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature and regarded as an essential part of the individual: emotional, mental, and spiritual levels form an energy field around the body known as the aura muddy colours in the aura indicate negative emotions
• any invisible emanation, especially an odour: there was a faint aura of disinfectant

• 3. Medicine a warning sensation experienced before an attack of epilepsy or migrainis some

 

Aura usually linked to paranormal activities and spirtual links, this was appropraite to our film as the child is dead and he has come back to find his family and find someone to help him finally be at peace.

 

We do not have a brain storm of ideas for a film title as AURA was the first title i thought of and all of my group agreed ti was the right title for our film.

Pandemic Pictures

We decided to have a black background to help make the picture stand out, drawing the audience in from it looking bold and striking. It also shows a mysterious side as the whole image links into the conventions of horror which was our aim of the task. The image was found off of Google images, but our group didn't want to use somebody's picture so we decided edit the image to make it our own. I started to change the orientation of the image making it from a portrait to a landscape by cropping the image, as we thought this would help make it look my presentable for a logo of an institution. I started to make the image a higher contrast to help make the image feel more empowering and give a sense of tense which helps link into that mysterious feel. The original image also had trees in they eyes with leaves which we thought represented life, but as clever we thought that was we wanted to make our image original and have a disorientated feel, so I started to edit the trees out of the eyes, but left two branches. We then came together to decide if this image was suitable for our institution and it wasn't, so I then started to blur the branches to help give it a more disorientating feel. We decided on the image to represent our institution by being our logo because we thought it represented a 'pandemic' side which was what we wanted to happen i.e a bombing or a gas attack.

We planned to have music with our logo for example, a bomb alarm/siren to go off in the background when our production company shows up on our main film. This is effective as it will make the audience jump form with a sudden shock of the sound and remember it which was key. The sound also helps us link to the the meaning of our production company which was intended.

The font we chose for our logo was Times New Roman font. This helps show are name in a very sophisticated way, and also helps make our institution company look very sophisticated and experienced. We also used the white text to make the text standout on the black background, making the audiences attention get drawn in with in the piece. Finally we thought it was very important to have our text in capital letters to make it stand out to the audience showing the importance, power, and experience within our logo.

Logo Designed By Emma Bradshaw
Writen By Emma Bradshaw with the assistance of myself

Final Film Narrative

A 9 year old boy is belived to have gone missing one day after he ran off into the woods after his dog.

After many years of searching for the missing child the police close the case as and declare him dead, the family never gave up hope however after getting into finanical difficulty the family are forced to move house much to their regret. A new family have now broght the property Sam and her family move in and Sam soon discovers that no everyone has moved out at first Stephen terrorises her but as the film goes on Sam finds out more and more about Stephen and sets out to help him.

 

First idea of how the film will open is that the film will begin ina short dream with a quick sucession of shots building tension with a blury vision.

The dream will end on the image of the boy and cut to a girl waking up fro the dream, where te girl will then get up look for her mother to realise she is out then as she starts to hear noises she will go up to the lift to investigate where it wil end on a shot of the missing boy.

Production Company Name Brainstorm

Final Brainstorms

Final brainstorms from zak on Vimeo.

9 Frame Storyboard - The Ring

1. Production Compnay
2. Sets the scene
3. Intrduction of characters
4. Plots begins
5-8. Horror action begins
9. opening ends

Psycho 9 Frame Storyboard

Here is a 9 frame storyborad of Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho, 9 frame storyboard of the key moments during the opening of psycho.

Preliminary Evaluation

Preliminary Task Film

Preliminary Shooting Schedule

Roles

Preliminary Script

Preliminary Task Narrative

Preliminary Task Narrative

 

Preliminary Storyboard

Preliminary Brain Storm Ideas

Preliminary Ideas

Here is a image of one of our groups spider diagram ideas sheet. We decided to brain Storm many different ideas rather than just sticking with horror ideas as the idea of or preliminary task was just to get a feel for the camera work and type of shots.

Psycho Essay Extract

Art Of The Title

 


Art of the title from zakrodgers

Audience Profile

Audience Research Results Analysis



Gender

Here is the results for Gender (26 people surveyed as of February 2013) the results tell me that 17 out of 26 people questioned where male possibly signalling a male aimed horror film. This is dependent on the amount of men compared to how often watch horror films.

Often

This question is very important as it can revel to me how often my potential target audience watch films from the horror genre it is also very important as it can tell me what gender watch horror films all the time to often describing to me who my target audience should be aimed at. Its important to know this as if my film is aimed at young men i may want to have a young good looking actress or young female audience a young male actor to follow the codes and conventions. Through working out the ratios from gender to how often it has come to my attention that 6 Men questioned watch horrors all the time and 5 watch then often but taking into account the fact that 6 of the 7 men that answered sometimes tell me that mainly men watch horror films which stereotypically follows the codes and conventions of horrors. This has revealed to me that my horror film will be aimed at mainly the male gender.



Age

Th age question again simply helps me capture my target audience for my film and this question tells me what age my films should be aimed at linking to the results from my gender question. A large majority questioned were the age of 11-22 telling me that the majority of people questioned are young and also gives me advice on the content i should add in my film. Meeting half way between the ages gives me on average aged 15 which my film can be aimed at. This gives me the ability to add more content in the film for it to be classed as 15. See BBFC post.

This question was asked to tell myself and group pandemic what our possible target audience want. This question was about the placement of the credit sequence a very important factor in movie making. The results tell us that 15/26 would prefer to see credits at the beginning of a film. Following with codes and conventions typically in movies a few credits would appear on screen in the beginning of the film, such as the productions company and the actors. We have chosen to follow our results and have credits appear on screen these will only be out actors/actresses names and the names of our group along with the production company.

 

This was a very important question to myself and our group as in my opinion sound is one of most key aspects of horror films. The survey results were very close but with tension building with the majority of the result being 10/26. An example of how important sound is in horrors that nobody questioned voted for no sound. With our chosen sub-genre being 'Psychological horror' we felt that tension building music along with quiet and creepy would be appropriate.


Actors and actresses are another important factor in any film not just horrors so for this question we gave three options rather than just male or female. The results were close and would have been influenced as the majority of people that completed the survey were men so this could stereotypically have an impact as to why woman were the most popular closely followed by children this could be because we mainly asked questions about horror and children can be quit scary characters in horrors and do appear as possessed in many horrors. Following the codes and conventions and looking at the sub genre of our final film both woman and children actor/actresses would fir perfectly. Young, good looking sometimes teenage girls are often the protagonist and usually are killed off and in psychological horrors children are usually possessed attacking the female.
 

The Importance Of Sound In Horror

Sound is so important when it comes to films and especially when is comes to the horror thriller genre. 

There are two main types of sound in the production of visual media, that is Diegetic sound and Non sound here are the definitions diegetic;

Diegetic sound - is sound where the source of it is visible on screen or is being implied that the sound is happening in the action for example diegetic sound could be the dialogue from the actors and actresses or music within  the frame. Diegetic sound can come form on or off screen as long as the original source is within or out of the frame. it can also be called actual sound. 

Non-diegtic - is sound where the source is not visible and hasn't been implied through the action on screen. For example this can be sound effects that emphasis the drama on screen or it can be a voice over/ music. 

 

Sound is an extremely important factor when it comes to both my preliminary and final film as sound is one of the factors what makes some great films great, for instance in an Action film they may have various types of diegetic sound such as gun shots and the booming sound from sports car engines this is diegetic because it fits in with what is happening in the frame however has been enhanced and placed over the top of the film to emphasis the drama.

 

Sound in the horror genre is very important as it is frequently used whether it is to emphasis the closing of a door or a rumbling sound to create tension. Sound can help an audience reach a climax then a visual image may appear on screen to make an audience jump yet without the sound building tension this would may not be possible.

 

Through researching and personal experience one of my favourite uses of sound in horror is in the Paranormal Activity franchise. I think this is an excellent example of how sound is used to create tension and build up a climax, through the use of a long slow rumbling bass sound which starts off quietly slowly getting louder this unnerves the audience at first until the peak of action happens and the sound is cut until another night and the rumbling starts to begin. The audience then starts to associate that sound with bad things and when the sound starts to begin they feel unnerved and know something bad is going to happen each time.

Above is a clip form the first film where a night scecene is shown as you can hear there is a deep sounding bass in the background creating tension it also emphasises the loud bangs.
Sound have been acociated with horror since the birth of the genre, most horror films follow the typcial codes and conventions of horror ie when they is a murder scene there may be harsh fast and loud music fo example the shower scene for Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho or it maybe a possesed child where the sound of a nursary rhyme is being played in the background.

 

Online Survey (Audience Research)

Here is my audience research questionnaire which i have created online using 'surveymonkey' please take the time to fill out the questions which will enable me to analyse the results to create a better horror movie opening for you the audience. I have used this online survey to keep up with new media as this is the new growing form of primary research.


Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

The British Bored Of Film Classification

The british bored of film classification from zakrodgers

Horror Sub-Genres

Horror sub genres from zakrodgers

Here is a listed example of horror sub genres with some examples of popular films that fall under the sub genre

Film Institutions

Film Opening Research

Here is an example of the opening to a horror film, this film is called 'The Shinning' thought to be one of the top horror films to date. The opening credits create a very uneasy feel for the viewer with the non-diegetic sound building tension. There is no specific horrific scene but the sound makes a viewer want to carry on viewing. This tells me that hone it comes to my final task sound is extremely important when trying to create tension. 

This is the opening scene to The Woman In Black I have personally seen this film and thought it was an excellent horror/thriller film. The film creates its horror scenes through frightening the audience by making them 'jump' with fear  by people and objects appearing on screen suddenly. This opening scene ends on a cliff anger encouraging the viewer to continue viewing the film as the opening scene is an impact seen with questions unanswered and shocking scenes. This would help me in my final task by deciding whether I would have a strong impacting opening scene.

This is the opening sequence to the 1978 hit 'Halloween' the opening credits are dated but that is because of the age of the film. The opening proves that horror films still have a similar narratives and follow the same codes and conventions. This opening again follows with the shock scenes and opening with action.

Here is the opening credits to the original movie Dawn Of The Dead. In these opening credits we see the narrative explained to us in short cut clips with scenes from around the country of a zombie attack. The short clips create tensions in the opening and create a narrative hook as as an audience we want to continue viewing to find out what caused this.   

This is the opening to the 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre which has been voted the 3rd best horror film of all time by timeout.com. The use of a black out creates high tension until the flash of the horrific images come up of screen making an audience jump right from the start, even though there is no physical action on screen only flashes of images. 

This opening has been taken from a recent film called 'Sinister' from the makers of Paranormal Activity.  The opening scene is very short and also is shocking to an audience, this is because they don't fit the codes and conventions and the audience witness the murder of what seems to be a family with children which is unusual. This opening has shown me that a horror film would only have to have one shocking scene to create a atmosphere. 

Tzvetan Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian philosopher, his narrative theory idea was that all texts that involve a narrative had a five stage cycle to them. Each stage happens in most narrtive texts such as plays, books and films. These stages involve the equlibriums.
 

 

Psycho Narrative

Here is a short video clip of me talking about the narrative in Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho. The camera shots and quality are not top quality die to it being filmed on a Iphone 5 demonstaring my use of a range of technology and new media. Bleow there is also a clip from the famous shower scene from Psycho to compliment my video.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

Here is a short video i have found during research of the hypodermic needle theory explaining it in brief. The source was YouTube and was uploaded by Brett Lamb.











Basically in brief the hypodermic needle theory was created over 80 years ago during the first world war. It tells us how mass media affects the audience and almost offends a modern day audience as it represents the audience as being stupid and naive and believes that an audience will accept anything they are fed without using their own minds to question and think about the information they are being given. This model is very dated and was mainly used for propaganda during the war. It suggests that the mass media can affect the way we behave and the decisions we make. This model has been linked with modern day audience in the form of rap music and the sexual representation of stars thinking that an audience may copy these without taking in and using their minds to think about what message they are sending out.
The theory then proved ridiculous to media researchers and they then came up with the Two - Step theory. I have taken the following information form the website www.mediaknowall.com and it is a brief paragraph on the two step flow diagram which was discovered during my research of the hypodermic needle model....
"The Hypodermic model quickly proved too clumsy for media researchers seeking to more precisely explain the relationship between audience and text. As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world and did NOT reduce populations to a mass of unthinking drones, a more sophisticated explanation was sought.
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm."

Vladimir Propp

 Vladimir Propp was a Russian critic who analysed old Russian Folk stories in the 1920's through his analysis he discovered that the same events were repeatedly taking place throughout these stories. Propp broke the stories down into different key characters and moments the appear in many texts. This theory is know known around the world by many writers, directors and literacy theorists and has had a massive influence the stories they tell to a modern day audience. Here are some examples of his theory and some characters in film they apply to.

• The Villain - (Antagonist) usually has an issue or struggle with the protagonist. (E.G Lord Voldemort Harry Potter)
• The Helper - Helps the protagonist on his quest. ( E.G Donkey Shrek)
• The Hero - The hero departs on a search usually to defeat the villain or rescue the princess (E.G Tom Cruse in Knight and Day)
• The Princess - is a reward for the villain, marries the hero and usually sought after the hero during the narrative. (E.G Rapunzel Tangled)
• The Donor - helps the hero by providing him with a magic object. (E.G Letters in P.S I Love You)
• The Dispatcher - the character who send the hero on his quest (E.G Agent Z in Men In Black)
• The False Hero - This character may seem to be good but wants to steal part of the hero's 'Lime-light'.