17/3/2016 - Kelli's lesson

 

In this session, I was researching the Codes and Conventions of the Genre I have chosen for my Final Major Project, which is Horror as I have chosen to make a short film for Film 4 Fright Fest. To do that, I had to identify the typical aspects of my chosen Genre in each of the following categories: - Narrative/themes, Setting/location, Props/costumes, Colours, Music/sound effects and Characters and how thOse aspects could be used in my Short Horror Film which I intend to focus on a disfigured young man who murders people with a screwdriver and to be entitled You're Screwed!.

 

I spent most of the morning working on Moodboards relating to a specific Genre with James Acraman. We covered three genres, Romance, Horror and Action and I also researched the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Film 4 Fright Fest website and the festival as a whole.  

 

21/3/2016 - Natalie’s lesson

 

In this session, I started doing my primary research for my Final Major Project. My first task was to start planning a focus group for which I will require a note—taker, a moderator and 6 volunteers but those achieving those goals would come later. To start off, I had to watch two short horror films on the internet as I am going to be doing a Horror film for the Film 4 Fright Fest and then ask 10 Qualitative questions relating to my chosen Horror films, 5 for each short. I chose two slasher style Horror shorts as I intend to do a slasher horror for my FMP. This was to find out who my target audience are and what they expect to see in a short Horror Film.  

 

Once I had done this, I then had to compose another questionnaire consisting of 5 Quantitative questions to find out the age, gender and other basic information about my target audience and print off 6 copies for each of my volunteers. This I achieved after 3 attempts to satisfy Natalie with my efforts. I have started composing another questionnaire using Survey Monkey.

 

24/3/2016 - Kelli's lesson

 

In this lesson, I was required to work on and complete the Audience Profile for my Final Major Project. My findings have shown me that my target audience consists mostly of students aged 16-26 both male and female who are succeeders on the lowest level of income which is Class E on the Socioeconomic table. They would prefer a short Horror Film with a good narrative, tension in the storyline, preferably with jump scares and serious rather than comedic. I feel this has been a great help to me in deciding what to include in my Final Major Project though I also feel I could have had more volunteers and from different age groups.

 

31/3/2016 - On this day, we went to the British Film Institution IMAX Cinema in Waterloo, London. It is the biggest Cinema Screen in the UK at 20m by 26m and we went there with Ollie Samuel, Natalie Cooper and Kelli Watson. The film we went to see was Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. I thought for a superhero movie, it was overlong and overly-complicated with more subplots than were needed and this slowed down the pace of the main plot. I actually fell asleep during the first half of the film as the tutors later observed and only woke up when there was a scene of an American Court House suddenly blowing up with the deaths of many innocent people and at least one significant character. The idea of two well-known superheroes fighting each other seemed kind of confusing and made little if any sense as this only allowed the Main Antagonist to use them both to his advantage. The IMAX facilitates both 70mm and 35mm film projectors     

 

1/4/2016 - Ollie's lesson

 

In this lesson, Ollie taught us at length about the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and also about Intellectual Property and Consent. The first main subject was the BBFC and how they classify films both modern and old as I for one had recently read that the 1978 film Watership Down was rated U when it was first released but would most likely be rated PG if it were relased now due to violence of what would be considered too strong for a U rating today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35924936). We also looked at a Case Study of Copyright Infringement in  which Albert Hammond successfully sued Radiohead for breach of copyright over their song Creep playing along a similar track to his song The Air That I Breathe. 

 

21/4/2016 - Kelli's lesson

 

I had to do a brainstorm of our Short Horror Film as my only recently assigned team-mate James Acraman was absent for the first hour of the session. I managed to come up with a comprehensive map of our ideas for the plot and the locations, props, costumes and equipment we would need and who our cast and crew would consist of. I then had to do a Lino-it board of our ideas for our Short Horror Film, covering each of the following areas: Media Influences, Genre Conventions, Constraints, Story and plot and structure, Aesthetics, Colour themes, Props and costumes, Setting, Casting and Whatever else that needed covering. I managed to create a comprehensive Lino-it board with as much information as possible and tried to include as many visuals as I possibly could as James has not yet elaborated further on our project which is to be called Cyber-Stalker but I have been coming up with suggestions for where to go with it such as simplifying the plot as the tutors have so far expressed concern that the plot in its current form is too complicated. I then spent the remainder of the lesson going through all the work I have produced up until now and uploading whatever work I still needed to upload to my website which I think I have managed to do.

 

25/4/2016 - Natalie's lesson

 

Although I had done a brainstorm in Kelli's lesson, I discovered that I had somehow mislaid it so I had to let it go for now. I produced a Mind-Map of all the ideas for my Short Horror Film relating to the aspects of Characters, the Working Title, the Plot, Influences, the Codes and Conventions of Horror, the Location and Setting, Props and Costumes, Sound (which I have decided not to use in my individual edit), the Structure of the Narrative and the Target Audience. I also wrote my Proposal as I was yet to actually write one and I have started working on my Pitch.

 

29/4/2016 - Pitch in F308

 

Having spent most of the 27th and 28th of April working on my Pitch Presentation and my Proposal as well as uploading all the work I have done so far to my website, this was where I had to make it all count. My Pitch was scheduled for 10.40am with James Acraman although the group preceding us ran over time. James did his Pitch first and then it was my turn. I tried to speak as clearly as possible but I found myself looking at my cue cards all too often and forgot to progress from one slide to the next on Ollie's computer and even occasionally looking behind me. I actually thought I had messed up my Pitch but Ollie liked our idea for our film Cyber-Stalker and only asked me what my role in the project was as I had not explained that initially. I explained that I am Co-Director and Cinematographer and also providing the voice of the Cyber-Stalker in James' version as he intends to use dialogue and I intend to just have background noise and no dialogue like in the night-time scenes in Paranormal Activity. Since we intend to film our intended ending using a green-screen, Ollie recommended that we experiment with after-effects before we start filming and to come with an alternative ending that will not require a green-screen if the experiment does not go to plan as he also cited the difficulty of mastering after-effects in a short space of time.

 

5/5/2016 - Kelli's lesson

 

I attempted to start producing the storyboards for Cyber-Stalker which was difficult as James was initially absent and then had to work on the script which he and I collaborated on and finished.

 

6/5/2016 - Ollie's lesson

 

We printed off our finished script and presented it to Ollie who pointed out that there were a lot of changes that needed to be made due to over-long dialogue and changes that James had made that were unnecessary and not likely to move the plot along. We each proceeded to write our own modified scripts and share our ideas, completing the revisions on time. However, we had to keep revising the script which took up further time and Ollie had us conduct an experiment with after-effects to see if our intended ending of Cyber-Stalker pulling Frankie into his laptop was ultimately going to work. This proved to be a lot harder than we had anticipated and Adobe After-Effects kept crashing on us so Ollie decided not to waste any more time and let of us off after 3 hours of staying behind.

 

7-8/5/2016 - The Weekend

 

Feeling deeply chastened by the previous day's events, I spent the day thinking about how we really needed to come up with an alternative ending as it was clear our intended ending was not going to be possible to film in the limited amount of time we had to film and edit everything. Eventually, I came up with the idea that Frankie should merely hear his own voice hurling insults at him until finally he goes mad and commits suicide. I wrote theses ideas down and pitched them to James and he liked my ideas once he got back to me the next day. 

 

9/5/2016 - Natalie's lesson

 

With the revisions we had made to our plot over the weekend, we worked on and completed the required revisions to our script.

 

16/5/2016 - Audio Recording

 

We recorded the Cyber-Stalker's lines and the Paranormal Voice on a Zoom H4N Recorder in one of the small meeting rooms in the Oaklands College LRC.

 

17/5/2016 - Filming

 

We went to the unoccupied property at 25 Hollycopse, Stevenage to use one of the upstairs bedrooms as Frankie's room to do our filming which we started at 9.30am and finished by 3pm then we went to James' home to transfer our raw footage on to our hard drives.

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18-20/5/2016 - Producing my Rough Cut

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I spent the next 3 days editing my footage in order to produce a Rough Cut. The first day, James brought his laptop with him as he intended to do his editing on Adobe Elements ratehr than Premeir Pro and then he taught me how to use Elements so that I could start my editing. From May 19th onwards however, James' family wouldn't allow him to bring his laptop to college so he had to do his editing at home and I had to continue mine on Premier Pro. In the end, I ended up producing 3 Rough Cuts, unintentionally due to unforeseen problems that neither me nor the Technicians could solve. The most notable problem was solving the problem of the Cyber-Stalker appearing on James' laptop since his parents would not allow him to operate it during filming. I tried imposing a still image of the Cyber-Stalker whenever the laptop screen appeared but this created a problem in which the image appeared in front of James when it was supposed to be behind him. I only discovered this problem after producing my first Rough Cut. For my 2nd Rough Cut, I tried making the image smaller in the clips where it obscured James but this created obvious Continuity Errors and Inconsistencies that prompted the creation of a 3rd Rough Cut. In the last Rough Cut, I compensated by extending the image of the Cyber-Stalker so that it covered the whole screen. This did at least help me to learn to use more of the available tools on Premier Pro, most notably altering the Scale Height and Width, changing the rotation and positioning of images using the Corner Pin function.  

 

23/5/2016 - Rough Cut Screening

 

I screened my rough edit to the class, the general feedback I received was that the room was too brightly lit for a Horror film (I had requested for James to dim the lights but he claimed I would not be able to see properly to do any filming) and the plot was more funny than scary, the Cyber-Stalker should have been filmed rather than photographed and as has so often been a problem for us throughout this project, the ending was not very popular, some students stating that Frankie hanging himself is too over the top. I intend to make the tone for my Final Cut darker and cut out periods of long pauses and having finally acquired the audio in its entirety, I can make a vast improvement on that and I have arranged with James to film me actually performing as the Cyber-Stalker on Thursday May 26th. I have managed to desaturate the tone of my film and have cut down all the scenes that were spoiled by pauses. 

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26/5/2016 - Filming Cyber-Stalker Scene

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James and I went into Natalie Cooper's unoccupied room F301 to film me as the Cyber-Stalker. I insisted that this time, we would film in reduced light so I turned all the lights off and closed most of the blinds. James occupied the role of Cinematographer while I read from my script wearing the black balaclava and Army jacket once more. Once this was over, James left to do his editing at home while I continued my editing in F303.

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27/5/2016 - Editing Final Cut

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I spent most of the day editing my Final Cut, this time with the footage of me as the Cyber-Stalker included. As before with the still image, I imposed the footage onto the laptop screen using the Scale Height and Width, Rotation and Corner Pin functions only for it to appear in front of James when it was supposed to be behind him. Deciding I had to include some Over-The-Shoulder Shots somehow, I searched through my Raw Footage to find a clip in which James looked to his right, away from the camera rather than to his left towards it, so I replaced the other Over-The Shoulder Shots with that clip in both instances where James appeared behind the Cyber-Stalker. I also compensated for the overwhelming brightness of the light by turning the saturation level up to 100% so that the film was entirely in grayscale to add to the Horror Aspect and imposed a plain white image onto the laptop screen set to appear for just a split second so that it would appear as a brief flash to simulate the laptop switching on. I also changed the font colour of the Stalker part of the title to red. The one thing that still could not be helped was the ending but i did at least remove the scene in whcih James actually puts a noose around his neck.