Audience Response

Now we have completed our film it was time time show it to an audience and hear their thoughts on the film. The audience that watched our film was my AS Level media class and they commented on what they thought were the strengths and weaknesses of our film overall.


Strengths:
The first main strength that someone in my class commented on was the good use of a variety of shots throughout. We used a lot of different angles and camera shots to really bulk up our film to make it seem more professional.
Another comment mentioned was our music throughout our film. Classmates mentioned that our music really fitted our film and it helped build up the tension as the music was building up in pace and becoming dramatic.
The story was picked out by a number of classmates who watched the film. They said that the plot of the game of hide & seek was really good because it gave a sense of mystery into the opening title sequence and it also made them think that the girl counting was instantly the person behind it all. We then told our classmates that our film actually never revels the killer but we wanted to make it look like it was her behind it so it made the audience want to watch the rest of the film.


Weaknesses:
The first thing that people picked up on was our accidental camera shake. This was in the medium group shot where the teenagers were sat on the bed. This was accidental and might have been perfected if we had  professional equipment rather than the equipment provided by our school.
Another comment which was mentioned was that our opening title sequence reminded them more of a trailer due to our use of visual lettering in the middle "You can run but you can't hide". This was a fair comment made. We had a mixture of results from this comment, some people thought it looked like a trailer, others liked the use of lettering and thought it was a good effect on the films opening.

Hide & Seek

Evaluation

Our brief was to construct the opening sequence of a thriller film, including titles and a wide range of camera shots. This opening sequence was to be aimed at audiences of 15 or 18 certificates and can be no more than 2:00 minutes long.

At first I analysed a number of different existing films within our set genre which was thriller to see what their techniques were in making an opening title sequence. Two of the opening title sequences I analysed was the famous thriller film "Psycho"and "Vertigo" directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock had Saul Bass to design the openings for those to films so I did some research on Saul Bass to find out what techniques he feels make a good opening title sequence and what ones he used on the two films. Saul Bass has inspired new films to used similar techniques in their openings for example "Casino Royale". The purpose of an opening title sequence is to leave subtle hints to what the film may include, creating an air of mystery or enigma code leaving the audience questioning about the plot. I and my group wanted to use techniques from the openings we analysed as we thought some were very effective. One I found very effective was in Vertigo where there is a close up of the women's eye and then it spirals to disorientate the audience. We thought this would be affective in our opening sequence so we used it at the beginning of ours. We got our production company name "Photo Play" at the beginning and we then rippled out from our logo into a lamp on the outside of a house. Although I and my group wanted to use some good techniques we have seen from other films we didn't want to go down the route that most people tend to go down by having as professionals would state it "A STALKER". We wanted our opening title sequence to be different and individual. We decided to make instead of a more typical opening title sequence being separate to the film, we chose to have the opening title sequence as the beginning of our film as we went for a flashback. The opening title sequence was a flashback of characters when they were younger and then after the opening title sequence finishes the film goes back to present day. We also used dialogue in our opening title sequence rather than the typical silence and background music. We did use music in our media product but we thought that the dialogue would create more effect on t he audience especially when the girl counting (played by Louise Howard) was saying "One, Two, Three..." We also added a screeching sound with some visual dialogue to draw the audience into the film saying the words associated with the film title "You can run but you can't hide". The thriller music we chose at first was home made music played on a piano by Scott Morgan who is m step brother but after editing it onto our film we decided it wasn’t really suitable and used some other music giving to us by our teacher that was copyright free.

Our opening title sequences is a flashback of a group of teenage girls having a childish game of hide and seek which then leads to a girl being locked in an old cupboard in the house by possibly a mystery killer? Or is it one of her friends playing a practical joke? We went for this because it leaves the audience feeling confused to what is happening and what might happen further in the film. The audience wants to see more which is what an opening title sequence is meant to do. Firstly after we decided on the plot of our film we discussed the location. Straight away we found the perfect location for our opening title sequence to be sat. We set it at my house as it is an old farm house down an old lane and old features inside to create more effects and it was also close by to everyone else in my group so meeting up and filming wouldn’t be an issue. We decided not to show any actual crime or violence in our opening title sequence as we thought it would look a bit amateur. I would say our film is mainly for teenagers as it starts with a bunch of teenagers at a sleep over so the audience can relate to them and what they are doing. Also as the storyline is quite confusing I think teenagers would be best suited to understanding the plot.


I think it shows the representation of my social group being teenagers in our film through the acting and age of our actors and also the way they behave in our opening. The age of our actors in our opening title sequence were 16 and 17 years of age so they relate back to the representation of the teenage social group.



We decided call our film "Hide & Seek" as we thought it was a catchy title and it would work well with the story line we originally found on the internet. The storyline we found was called "Bless You" a girl is wondering through the corridors of her home and sneezes and a voice says "Bless You" but she thought she was home alone? We wanted to make our set as realistic as possible so we used real items that people would have at a sleep over, laptop, make up for the girls, magazines and other house hold items. I took a number of location shots before we went to film to see what shots might work or might not work for our film. As an individual, I firstly didn't quite understand how our plot was going to work through a film and how we were going to get it across in our opening title sequence but as the weeks of planning went on my understanding became greater for filming in general and in how media works. One of the shots we included in our film was a close up of a girls face counting with her hands covering her eyes. The actor playing this girl was Louise Howard. We used this shot because it related back to our title and our opening sequence is based on a game of hide and seek. We used this shot a few times because we kept cutting back to her counting and we also cut to different shots of her friends hiding for example a shot of actor Matthew Granger hiding under a bed. We also used some visual dialogue during her counting of the words "You can run but you can’t hide". This was to attract the audience into the film and also the words again relate to our title.

When our film was near completion, I started to research into what production company I would like to produce our film. If we had loads and loads of money i would love to distribute our film with an American Company and make it global in cinemas. I would possibly work with "Twisted pictures" which is known for its large production of thriller films. "Universal" would be another option because it is well known world wide for its dramatic and outstanding film production. But as we only have a small amount of money and our budget is only little we are going for an independent film production we will only distribute our film locally and will only look to draw small audiences rather than global audiences. One group I found which was only an independent film distributing company was Warp Films. Warp films is a film production company that specialises in British Cinema and it was launched in 2001. It is based in, England and Sheffield, with a further office now in Melbourne. London. One of their films that they have worked on to produce was "This Is England" by Shane Meadows. Small independent companies have got many ways of distributing films. One way i would possibly distribute our film is by "Film4" as they welcome small amateur ideas in film. But as there is now many easier ways of viewing films i would possibly post it online on the internet rather than in local cinemas. I could post it on YouTube which is a global video website or if i wanted to keep it even closer to home I could post the video on Facebook so that my friends can view and comment our short film. I would want to distribute my film because I would like to see what people think about our film and comment on it saying good points and bad points. One point made by a member of our audience was that they thought our opening title sequence reminded them a lot like a trailer which was a fair point in my opinion. The reason he said this was because of the way our opening sequence ended with the zooming out of the lamp to the establishing shot of the house. But as our opening is a flashback it then from that shot changes from night to day and changes to the present time when the teenagers are now older. And also I feel that I and the group worked to hard on it for it not to be shown to an audience.

Our brief stated that our opening title sequence had to be a thriller for the age certificate 15 or 18. We decided to make our certificate 15 because we didn’t use any violence of horror effects in our opening title sequence also in the rest of the film we weren’t going to use any either as a theme our film was based around was dark magic. Also i think this age category would be reasonable for the understanding of our plot. Also our characters were teenagers. The age of the actors also relate modern day society which is our target audience.

We attracted the audience in our opening sequence by using a number of different camera shot, background music, special effects like rippling edits and visual dialogue and confusing plot from the start. The title of our film is "Hide & Seek". This itself attracts the audience to want to watch our film as it is short and simple yet very catchy and effective. Also everyone knows how to play the game hide and seek so the audience can relate to the title and our twisted, mind challenging plot all begins due to a harmless game of hide and seek. We added our title into our opening title sequence because we wanted to add some visual addressing to the audience. As well as the audience watching the opening title sequence and taking in the verbal dialogue from the actors they also have to read what is being displayed on the screen in front of them.

We went for a very simple title name and also a very simple title logo which appeared on screen.

We thought having the title simply coming up on the screen would be good for the audience because it was simply writing on a black screen. Simple but effective. I feel that it is effective because there is nothing else that catches your attention or draws you away from the title.

We also came up with a production name "Photo Play Productions". We came up with this name because it is related to film making and it was also a quick and easy one to sort out as we were very busy with editing the film when coming up with the name. The production name is simple and basic which i think is a very good thing because it is easy for the audience to remember which will help them to remember the film. This could eventually help our audience numbers to increase.

When making this film I learnt alot of technolgies for film making. I learnt that one of the first things you have to do in order for the film to work was to collect all our ideas together and put them all down on the table and have a group discussion on what storyline we are going to do and how we are going to do it. When we were put into our groups we instantly had our story of "Hide & Seek" and it was simply a matter of working together as a team and making it happen. Before we started filming we decided on what roles to take on in our group. Rachel was the director, Ellie was props and mise-en-scene and storyboarding, Josh was working with Ellie and I was producer. Ellie and Josh were in charge of drawing the storyboards as they were both suitable for the job. I learnt how do draw up a storyboard and how important they are to the editing and filming process. Our storyboard was our plot of  "Hide & Seek". I also learnt how to write up a shot list and it was my role to write ours up for the group. A shot list is basically a list of the shot type and the order that you will shoot them on filming day to make things a little bit easier when it comes to filming.

We decided to name our fiilm "Hide & Seek" as it resembled our storyline and it did not distract the audience from the film itself. This way we might possibly attract bigger audiences as they have more interest in the film. I learnt how t use the cameras and I learnt all about different types of camera shots, angles and movements and we used alot of these in our filming. One of the shots we used in our filming was a close up of the cupboard with the ribbon being tide around the handles. We thought this was a really important shot because it is the main feature to our opening title sequence biscise the game of hide and seek. It was the shot showing the girl getting locked in and we do not know who this person is. Another feature of this shot is that it is showing no violence and our flm did not include any viloance what so ever. We then cut from this close up to a medium shot of the cupboard with the ribbon tide around it and the girl trapped inside screaming and bashing the doors trying to escape.

I also learnt alot of technical aspects in the actual editing of the film. I firstly learnt how to upload the film onto the apple mac computers using a firewire and putting it onto imovie. I learnt a number of different editing techniques also. I learnt how to use different transitions and different special effects. As I was the producer I did have very little time to actually get hands on with the editing. I did get to have a go at a few things such as slow motion, jump cuts, and adding music to the film. It took a very long time to get the editing of our film completely right and finished and we came across a number of mistakes. We had to take a number of shots again because the original were not suitable for he film. One shot we did had rather alot of camera shake on it so we applied the stabilise button and this still had to much camera shake so we had to retake the shot again. We put all our shots in the order we wanted and then went to work on making the film flow. After mking the film flow we started on the special effects. One of my personal favourite special effect was a slow motion effect. The shot was firstly just a girl getting into the cupboard and closing it behind her then cutting to the title "Hide & Seek". But we thought it would be better if we added a slow motion effect when she is closing the door and then the slamming of the cupboard would be slower and louder and this worked extremely well to effect. After finishing editing we watched back the film as a group and took notes on anything that really need re-taking or needed to be changed. I thought that the ending shot need to be re-taken because I thought it was a little bit dull so I dragged the music across right to the end of the film to make a more dramatic ending and i also rippled the medium shot of the girl screaming inside the cupboard to white and then had a extreme close up of the lamp on the back of the house zooming up the garden to a final establishing shot of the farm house. I also learnt all about blogging work. Blogging work I have found a very fun and easy way of remembering and gathering the information needed to creat our opening title sequence to the best level we could posibly achieve. Firstly learnt how to set up the blogger webpage and then learnt how to post comments and imformation so that i can keep track of what i am learning throughout the course. Finally I learnt how to put films up onto youtube and blogger. I learnt how to burn the films off imovie onto disc and then upload them firstly onto youtube by uploading the video and then copy it onto blogger where it can be viewed by a number of audiences.

The original music we had for the film was homemade. It was music we recorded off my step brother playing this erie track on the piano but later after editing it onto the film it really wasnt the right pace or tone for the plot. We then got some none copy-righted music of our teacher and we had a listen to a few of them and then later added the song which is now our backing music.

Throughout making this film I believe that my group and myself have learnt all about team work and a number of ceative skills in order to make our film. You have to discuss objectives, targets, and outcomes of the task. When looking back to the beginning and my preliminary task I can see that I have progressed alot. I have learnt many different techniques that will help me alot if I am to take media and filming further in the future. It has giving me a good introduction and basic knowlegde in what filming and making films is all about. We hit alot of problems along the way. One major problem we had was comitment. We planned to film on one weekend and get it all done so that we could get on with the editing but nothing ever came of the situation. Eventually we all came together as a team to get the opening title sequence for a thriller done. When first getting the task I under estimated how much pre-production research had to be done and it has made me realise how much work has to go into making just a two minite film. You have to discuss objectives, targets, and outcomes of the task. Overal I think I did pull my weight alot into the making of our film and have gained alot of skills such as team work and creative skills in this area of media.

Audience Survey

I made a short questionnaire which i gave out to some friends and family to find out what they want to see in a thriller.


Please would you spare a few minutes of your time to answer my short questionnaire.


Whats your age?


What do you think is important in an opening title sequence? What draws you into a film?


Do you enjoy thriller films?


How do you rate thriller films?


Whats your favourite thriller film and why?


Do you like to see famous actors in thriller films?

Music

At first we were going to use some music that my brother played on the piano because it sounded really erie and creepy and we thought this was a good idea as no-one else would think to do it. 

After editing that music onto out film we decided afterwards that it really didn't suit out film so we decided to use some different music. We found some music on the internet that we thought suited our film. It had a high voice during the music saying "he's behind you". We thought this suited our film as it fitted the title hide and seek. Unfortunately we found out we had to pay so sadly we couldn't use this music. Thanks to Mrs Slater we now have music on our film as she gave us a disc of un copy righted music which we found suitable for our film. 

Film Script

HIDE AND SEEK

Written by Ellie Clark, Rachel Hatter, Zack Franks and Josh Christopher.

BLACK SCREEN

Sound of rain hitting window and girls chit chatting.

CUT

P.O.V FROM PERSON OUTSIDE

Girls laughing, talking etc.

Typical girls bedroom, e.g magazines, make up, food etc.

ZOOM IN FROM P.O.V SHOT TO INSIDE GIRLS BEDROOM.

GROUP SHOT OF GIRLS IN BEDROOM.

CLOSE UP OF GIRL ON LAPTOP

Girl 1: Oh my god, listen to the end of this one! “She opened her eyes and saw his gloved hands around her neck!”

GROUP SHOT

The other girls pretend to be scared.

MID SHOT OF GIRL GETTING UP

Girl 2: Just gonna get a drink…

CAMERA TRACKS HER OUT

LONG SHOT OF DOOR

CANTED SHOT OF DOOR KNOB

MID SHOT OF GIRL 3

Girl 3:  girls, I know, lets hide from her!

They all run out of the room laughing.

Girl 2 re-enters

MID SHOT OF GIRL WITH DRINK

PANNING OF EMPTY ROOM

CLOSE UP PUTTING DRINK DOWN

CLOSE UP OF FACE

Girl 2: Playing hide and seek are we?

Puts hand over face (grinning)

Girl 2: One

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: you can run

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl2: Two

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: But

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Three

EDIT

BLACKSCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: You can’t hide

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Five, six, seven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL UNDER A BED

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: nine, ten, eleven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL RUNNING DOWN THE STAIRS

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Thirteen, fourteen, fifth teen

CUT

GIRL RUNNING INTO A ROOM PANICING GOSE TO THE CUBOARD AND GETS INIT

P.O.V FROM GIRL OPENING THE CUBOARD

This is the first part of the script for our thriller opening. It was completed by Rachel and myself.

Sound of rain hitting window and girls chit chatting.

CUT

P.O.V FROM PERSON OUTSIDE

Girls laughing, talking etc.

Typical girls bedroom, e.g magazines, make up, food etc.

ZOOM IN FROM P.O.V SHOT TO INSIDE GIRLS BEDROOM.

GROUP SHOT OF GIRLS IN BEDROOM.

CLOSE UP OF GIRL ON LAPTOP

Girl 1: Oh my god, listen to the end of this one! “She opened her eyes and saw his gloved hands around her neck!”

GROUP SHOT

The other girls pretend to be scared.

MID SHOT OF GIRL GETTING UP

Girl 2: Just gonna get a drink…

CAMERA TRACKS HER OUT

LONG SHOT OF DOOR

CANTED SHOT OF DOOR KNOB

MID SHOT OF GIRL 3

Girl 3:  girls, I know, lets hide from her!

They all run out of the room laughing.

Girl 2 re-enters

MID SHOT OF GIRL WITH DRINK

PANNING OF EMPTY ROOM

CLOSE UP PUTTING DRINK DOWN

CLOSE UP OF FACE

Girl 2: Playing hide and seek are we?

Puts hand over face (grinning)

Girl 2: One

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: you can run

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl2: Two

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: But

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Three

EDIT

BLACKSCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: You can’t hide

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Five, six, seven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL UNDER A BED

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: nine, ten, eleven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL RUNNING DOWN THE STAIRS

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Thirteen, fourteen, fifth teen

CUT

GIRL RUNNING INTO A ROOM PANICING GOSE TO THE CUBOARD AND GETS INIT

P.O.V FROM GIRL OPENING THE CUBOARD

This is the first part of the script for our thriller opening. It was completed by Rachel Hatter and Ellie Clark.

Our Tagline

As a group we came up with this for our tagline :

Our film is a thiller influenced greatly by a scary story 'Bless you'. It deals with dark magic touching on why you should never mess with someone that knows it. Remember you can run... but you cant hide.

Storyboard

These Storyboards were written up by Ellie Clark and Joshua Christopher.

Shot List

Here is three pictures of our shot list: This was a joint effort by the group but was writen up by Zack Franks.

Location Shots

This is a long estblishing shot of the house we will be locating our opening sequence for our film "Hide And Seek".

Close up of the doors on the balcony where we will setting the scene of our opening. The girls will be sitting on the bed inside the room you can see through these doors.

This Shot will be featured in our opening as this is a close up P.O.V shot where the girls will be sat on the bed having their sleepover. It is a very important shot to our narrative.

This is a MS/CU of one of the other bedrooms n the house where one of the girls (cast) will be hiding from their friend. 

This is a grand piano in the living room and I (Zack Franks) thought we could add this shot to add effect of an old home, also we are going to get our backing music from this piano. We are not sure whether to us it throughout the opening or just when the title comes up. It is still being discussed.

This is a MS of the living room of the house we will be filming in. This shot may be featured in the thriller film. I feel that the fire place adds a great effect especially when lit.

Here is a low angle shot that we will be featuring in our opening title sequence, we will be having one of the girls running down these stairs when they are playing hide and seek.

The shots above were all taken by myself (Zack Franks). They were few random reccy shots of the location where we will be filming our opening title sequence. Some of the pictures above are locations that will actually be featured in the fiilm but they are currently being discussed with my group.

Camera Shots And Techniques

Shot reverse shot: Is a camera filming technique where you character is looking at another face on as if they are having a conversation. One character is often of screen so the camera cuts back and for so the audience beileve they are looking at eachother.


Close up: It is one of the most regulary used standard shots used in films, television and photography today along with medium shots and long shots. Close up deplay most details and you can either move nto a close up or out from one and this is called Zooming.


Master shot: Is a film recording of an entire dramatizied scene from start to finish from angles that keeps theplayers in view. It is often a long shot and can sometimes perform a double function as a establishing shot.


Dolly zoom: The dolly zoom effect is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.
Some information taken from Wikipedia.org.

Our Narrative

                                                           Hide And Seek


Beginning: Flashback of 5 teenage girls at a sleep over decided to playa a game of hide and seek which leads to strange happenings for the future. Whilst they are playing hide and seek one of the girls looks in an old wooden cupboard for her friends and a pair of hands lashes at her and grabs her around the neck. Who is this mystery killer?


Middle: The girls have grown up now, its about 5years to present time and the girls live separate lives. They start coincidently bumping into each other again like maybe at a shopping centre or party. One of the girls is getting married and has arranged for all the girls to go out for a hen night party. Couple of days before they all meet up for the hen, strange things begin to happen to the girls individually. For example one of the girls will wash her hands in the sink but she will see blood coming out of the taps instead of water. Another might be seeing her dead friend, the girl that was murdered at the sleep over 5 years ago. The girls all get killed but is it by the same person? How are they dying? Is it magic or just pure violence. Throughout the film they are getting killed in different people to leave the audience under suspicion.


End: We don't find out who the killer is but we just see a slight hint to whom it may be. Maybe a possible action or figure to symbolise his identity.


This was a joint effort by my group. 

Our Opening Title Sequence

Title: Hide And Seek.


Plot outline/summery: Mystery killer kills girl at a sleep over when they are playing a game of hide and seek.

Opening sequence outline/summery: We have gone with a flashback sequence to when they were young and playing this game of hide and seek. Set in the past by about 5years.


Characters: 5 teenage girls; Louise, Molly, Leah, Ellie, Hannah. 1 male; Zack.


Mise-en-scene: Interior of an old farm house. (Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, corridors etc).


Setting: Interior of house. (Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, corridors etc).


Locations: Old farm house in Pencoed, Bridgend, South Wales. (My House).


Costumes: Pyjamas, slippers, dressing gowns, hoodies etc.


Props: Pillows, sleeping bags, make up, magazines, mobile phones, food (sweets and munchies), pizza box.


Lighting: We are trying to create a naturalistic but suspicious atmosphere. So we have decided for the bedroom scene to have a single lamp on in the corner of the room. The room should be quite dim as it is set in the evening.


Sound: Piano playing in background and loudly for the titles (Hide And Seek).

Narrative Planning

Idea 1: The incident is that a girl gets killed by a mystery killer. Mood is fast pace.
Idea 2: The hook is that the is a teenage girl babysitting and a house and there is a knock at the door but know-one there so is there some now in the house? Mood is slow pace. 


Final Idea: There are a group of teenage girls having a sleep over and one the girls decides to say "lets play hide and seek" so the girls play hide and seek and then when the girl has finished counting she looks for all the girls and looks in an old wooden cupboard  and a pair of big hands come towards her and grabs her around the neck. Who is this killer and why was hew in the house?