Final

Media evaluation from Nicole Fitzgerald

Evaluation

Title sequence evaluation

 We had thought about what we wanted to produce with our title sequence and we agreed that we all wanted to go with the Horror genre although it focuses on the more supernatural and psychological factors and it is similar to the woman in black as we done some research within that film and it is very near the same as the way we wanted our film to be as it has a very on-going paranormal element to it, at the beginning we did come up the name ‘Orphanage’ as our film is based around a haunted orphanage, although when we gave our pitch to the class we were told that the name had already been used so we had to make another one so we settled on ‘Abandoned’ as we thought it suited well, our plot was about children being in an orphanage as they were abandoned by their parents when they were young.

  At the beginning of our title sequence the production company comes up ‘Hammer’ you are able to hear a running stream whilst these appear and then the first shot of our sequence is that of the stream itself.  Then begins an eerie music in the background of the stream and it then cuts to our next shot of when we are showing the audience the baby pictures on the wall, this is then showing the children featured in this film. There are four images shown of children during that shot there is a quick cut to a shot of a dirty, creepy looking hand grabbing onto a tree.  It then carrys onto the panning shot of the baby photos. 

As our title sequence is within the horror genre,  I think that our sequence managed to use the correct codes and conventions withing the genre as we had done three attempts and then we finally got the right sequence together, as our first attempt we decided that we were going to have our typography in a deep red colour to foreshadow blood although when we pitched it to the class we had been told that it wasn’t a good choice of writing or colour as the typography itself was appearing as too blurry for the audience to see.  So we went off and done some more research for different typogrpahy’s and we then settled on one called ‘An Unfortunate Event’ as we felt like it still fitted in with the eerie effect of our title sequence. We also change the colour of the font so it was more able to see within our title sequence as you weren’t really able to see the red font within the backgrounds of our title sequence, we felt like white was a more natural colour and that it was much easier for the audience to read whilst viewing our title sequence.

We went to do our filming in some woods as we felt like that would fit in more with the horror genre than if we were to film it anywhere else, we decided that we were going to go out and do the shooting of our title sequence around midday as we didn’t want it to be too light or too dark, although you can see in our shots it is still rather light whilst we were filming, we did have some issues within filming parts of our sequence as there was a few jolts within the shots as it wasn’t easy shooting in the stream.  We then went back to a friends house with permission from her parents to do the burning of the dolls house, this was foreshadowing the ending of our film as we said during our pitch.  We also have shots of the baby photos being burnt, this is then foreshadowing the goings on within the film itself.  We didn’t feature anyone in our title sequence as we felt like it wasn’t needed within our type of sequence. During the shots of the burning photos there is a muffled nursey rhymne being sung within the sequence, this is to create more of the eerie effect within our sequence, the burning of the baby photos foreshadows that our film may include children dying.

We decided that we were going to go with the ‘Hammer Films’ production as they were also used for ‘The woman in black’ and that is what we were basing our film around so we felt like this was a suitable media institution to go for as it is very well known with the horror genre of film. Due to similarities we felt as if hammer films were our best option to go with.

We said that our target audience would be ranged from young 12-25 male and female as we didn’t want it to be restricted so that anyone could go and see it. Our target audience would be more of the people whom of that like to go and see the horror type films and that like the eerie concept within the film. The film is for anyone that would like to go see it, as it isn’t just aimed at specific people.  Although as part of our pre-production, we did a survey to find out what our target audience’s interests were. Our target audience were lower/middle class teenagers. The horror genre is more aimed towards the male audience so we thought that females would be our primary audience and the males would be our secondary audience.

We addressed our audience within our title sequence as we gave them the insight of the goings on within the film itself and we made them feel as if they were in the sequence themselves as of when we were filming the part whilst walking in the lake and the way that it has been shot makes  you feel as if you are the one filming that part. We had also had many screenings of our title sequence once we had made a few adjustments within the sequence to see what the audience thought of our sequence and we asked for criticised feedback so we knew what was good and what could have been better within the sequence.  The most common positive feedback we got was about the sound that we used within the sequece, we had been told that we had used  the correct type of eerie music to give the audince the eerie effect whilst watching our sequence.

Whilst making this sequence I have learnt a lot more about editing as I didn’t know much to do with editing a whole sequence together. I learnt how to put text within a sequence as all of this stuff was new to me but whilst doing this task it has taught me how to do so. Although whilst using final cut bro at times it was rather challenging as it would freeze and sometimes wouldn’t do what we wanted it to do but we got there in the end. Although I wasn’t the one in charge of editing I did learn the basics on how to cut down a clip and amend them to places where they needed to be. I also learnt how the sound is very key within the sequence as it can affect the tone/mood of the film itself.  We learnt that even if we didn’t find parts of the sound good it gave our sequence that little bit more of the eerie atmosphere within the sequence itself. In our title sequence we had used a lot of non-digetic sound, we added in some foley sound from when we had the shot of the stream as then we were able to adjust the volume and the effects the sound had within the title sequence. We also used sound from a copyright free website, we decided on a track that would then make the audience feel a little uncomfortable whilst they were watching it.

I have gained many skills since then that I had never come across before. I have now realised that the storyboards are a very important within the shooting of the title sequence as it determines the exact shots you need to produce within the time and it is your guideline to help you get the best shots you can.

Overall I think that our title sequence came out very successful and I am pleased with the outcome and the pre-production was very well done and that us making our dolls house was very good and paid off after them hours of making it and the burning of the house was very successful that was the one part we were worried about as we had built the whole house and if it didn’t burn well or not how we wanted too then we wouldn’t of had any other way to use them shots in our sequence. However, we have learnt that we should always use a tripod whilst filming no matter what kind of position you are in as it can effect really bad on your clips.

Re-Edited Title Sequence

We decided that we weren’t going to change the typography for our title sequence, although in the end we decided that we would change the font so we went back onto dafont.com as in our feedback the audience said that the font we had originally used was too blurry and they found it hard to read, no matter what colour it was. We found a new typography called An Unfortunate Event as it still fits in with eerie effect within our title sequence. We agree with the feedback given to us with the white font so we have kept it that colour although we changed the typography we also had a look at a font called Charles S we did try it out within the title sequence but we felt it wasn’t as connected to the horror genre as much as the other font so we decided in the end to go with the first choice as we felt it fitted in better than the second one.

Class Feedback

After screening our title sequence to the class we got audience feedback. We got a range of good and bad feedback which is good so it then is giving us the opportunity to improve what needs improved the class mostly mentioned about the camera being very shaky in some shots which we agreed with as we already knew that there had been some shots that weren’t as successful as others although we did try and resolve these faults by trying to overlap the shots when we were editing all the clips together. In our storyboards we mentioned that we were going to feature a nursery rhyme into our sequence although when we were editing we decided that we didn’t think that it went well with the shots we had done and we felt that it made the sequence seem cheesy. Although the class have mentioned that they think that we should include it into the sequence, they said that it would make it more creepy or that we should include some children giggling to give it that eerie atmosphere, but as a group we are still unsure of what our decision is going to be.

Re-Edited title sequence

Editing

We have gone back into our title sequence and started to change the colour of the font as that was the main fault with the feedback that we got back from the class so we went for a white so it was easier for the audience to see, the red was foreshadowing the horror genre and we didn’t want the audience to loose sight of the horror genre we were going for with our title sequence. We have kept the same font ‘Nervous’ for now and we  can then see the feedback we get from the change in colour. However, for the last word in our sequence is the films title we decided that we were just going to change the brightness of the red as the white made the clarity even worse. We have shown our new edited sequence to some students and they have said that they are able to see the font a lot more clear than what they could when it was red, we are hoping to keep the original font as it connotes the horror genre and we think it fits in well with the sequence itself.

Feedback Editing

Since we got the feedback from our blog we have started to look at different fonts we could use as we have been told that the font colour should be changed as it wasn’t the right colour. This was the main fault that the class pointed out that needed to be changed also they mentioned how the typography itself should be re-positioned. We are trying to find another font type that will fit in with our genre type but we also didn’t want it too seem too boring or fit into another genre, it is difficult trying to find a font that we like and that the audience will like. We have found Supernatural Knight but we felt that it might come across as too boring, we have also found Ed Gein although we think that this goes totally out of our genre and into more of the slasher genre and we want to make sure that the audience don’t forget that the genre we have gone for is the horror genre for our title sequence.

Production

We finally finished the editing to our title sequence and were very pleased with the outcome; even though the server had been down a few times when we tried editing we managed to get everything edited into the final piece. I think that we have stayed true to our story boards but may have made slight changes within the filming as we didn’t think it would fit in with the genre of our film and we didn’t want it to end up sounding cheesy. We were originally going to have a nursery rhyme in the title sequence but once we had done all the shots for our sequence we thought that it wouldn’t go well with it as it wasn’t given the horror/eerie effect that we wouldn’t it to, so we decided not to add it into it. We also cut out a part that was on the story boards as once we had done all the shots we then thought that it didn’t look as good as we thought it would so we ended up not featuring it into our title sequence. 

Title Sequence (Clip)

Typography

We finally decided on the typography for our title sequence, we found it on da font it was called ‘Nervous’ we thought that it looked good and it was appropriate for our sequence. We chose to put the typography into red to connote horror, we also looked at a few other types like Night Bird and Feast Flesh. 

These are the other two that we also looked at but we thought that 'Nervous' fitted better with our genre.

Working Titles Research

Editing

Sound

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/blue-mist_37301.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/ghostly-child_29571.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/shadows_35205.aspx 

https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk/production-music/barren_32640.aspx 

We have now started to begin to edit our clips into Final Cut Pro we had over 100 clips to choose from and we all had some to convert so that we were then able to get it all done quicker, so far we have managed to narrow it down to four soundtracks that we like the best. We chose these soundtracks as we wanted to create an eerie atmosphere for the audience whilst we are linking the main children with the nursery rhymes that will be featured. The music that we have looked at are all copyright free. We have recorded the nursery rhyme needed for the first part of the title sequence, so we have now just got to do the editing and finding the typography for the titles.

Filming

We said that we were going to get our filming done during the Christmas holidays which we did, we managed to record all of our shots in one day, we spent the day taking different shots in different places we started off in the woods to get most of our shots it must have took us around 7 hours to shoot all of the stuff that we needed to shoot, we then went back to Ceren’s house to shoot the clips of the house burning as we got permission from her parents to do so, it was difficult at the start to get the fire going as it was extremely windy that day, but we were determined to get all the shots done. However, we then added a small amount of white spirit onto the house that we then stuffed the house with pieces of tissue that we were then able to set on fire. We were having trouble with burning the photos so we had to then move into a less windy place to be able to get the effect of burning images that we intended to get. We made sure that we had all the equipment that we needed for the shots in the woods, so we took water bottles to enhance the stream that we were going to be shooting although it had been rainy weather a few days before, which then gave us more opportunity to get good shots. We went out and started filming in the woods at around about midday, we would of liked it if it was darker although we shall be editing the contrast of these shots in Final Cut Pro to get the light that we wanted. 

Production Plan

Production Progress

Journal

We originally said that we were going to book out a camera and a tri-pod during the Christmas holidays but we forgot to do so, we then found that one of us had a useable camera and tri-pod to shoot with. We spent the whole day shooting for our title sequence, it was a very cold windy day but we managed to get all the shots done we thought that it went very well. We had some trouble getting the fire started on the doll’s house at the beginning although once it had set fire it was at a really good flame although it was very windy we achieved some very well shots of the doll’s house that will be featured in our title sequence.  We were also having trouble with trying to set the pictures on fire but in the end we went into somewhere that was less windy for them shots as we wanted them to come out well. When we went out we made sure that we had everything that we thought would be needed on the day of shooting so we took a camera, tri-pod, storyboards and bottles of water, we thought that we would have needed the water to make our own stream but once we got to the woods we found a nice stream that fitted in perfectly with the shots that we needed. It was difficult to get the right type of shots that we wanted whilst we were in the woods as we needed to walk in the stream to get the right shot. It was a very eventful/productive day of filming for us but we got everything done and we thought everything came out very well and we were pleased at how the dolls had burnt as that was the main thing for our sequence as if that didn’t burn right then we wouldn’t of had anything as you can see that we put it all together ourselves to get the effect of it being an orphanage.