Dear Moderator

Dear Moderator,

My name is Kathryn Thornton and welcome to my blog. It is a record of the work undertaken as part of  the G321 AS Foundation Portfolio within OCR GCE course in Media Studies. I worked independently in order to produce a film opening in the Horror genre. Overall, the project lasted four months, commencing in September 2016 and finishing in March 2017. I hope you enjoy my work and find it both successful and interesting. Please use the navigation bar to access my work into labels; Audience Research, Costumes and Settings, Evaluation, Film Opening, Film Openings Research, Filming, Drafting and storyboarding and Preliminary Task. There is also a link to the St Mary's School Blog Hub.

Thank you

Kathryn Thornton 

Final Film Opening: Nemesis

Here is my final film opening, called Nemesis:

Evaluation Activity 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout making my film opening, I used most forms and conventions of a typical horror films. For this evaluation I did a 9-frame-analysis in order to portray these conventions clearly.

1) The establishing shot of the house introduces and sets the scene for the film opening. It introduces the setting as a large and spooky looking house which will also introduce the sad and tensing atmosphere of the film opening. A spooky, old house is a typical setting for a horror film as it will immediately increase the eerie atmosphere that it establishes.

2) The second shot portrays the mother and her son playing together, like  normal family would do. The use and the sound of the toys gives a sense of normality and happiness as they play together. This, however, will soon change as we know they are torn apart, which makes the audience feel sympathy towards the mother.

3) This shot also gives a sense of happiness and normality as the mother is seen to be teaching her son how to play the piano. This emphasises the mother and sons strong bond, which again makes us feel sympathy towards the mother because of the fact that she has been torn away from her son through his death.

4) This close up shot how the story easily changes from happy to dark and scary, which is shown through the mothers scared and shocked face as she watches a horrific killing happening to her son, which she can do nothing about. Also, the audience knows that something bad has happened as the scene is a lot darker than the previous lighter and happy scenes.

5) The editing in this shot shows the son being thrown against the wall. This also poses mystery upon the audience as they may question whats happening? or Who's hurting the son?. Also, the audience will fell sympathy towards the son because they do not want him being harmed or hurt in any way.

6) This mid-shot of the mother, with her head down, encourages sympathy from the audience because of the terrible states she is in after her sons untimely death. The voice-over of the scene also shows the mothers distress at the loss of her son. Theses shots are filmed in a clinic room as the mother s in hospital and not allowed out because of her past which has caused her to develop mental health problems.  Lastly, the blue filter over the top of the shot reflects the mothers misery and sadness.

7) The close-up on the dead sons face, is horrifying and saddening as it shows the capabilities of the ghost and what the ghost has put both the mother and the son through in the film opening. Furthermore, the large cut or 'Gash' on the side of the sons face is very gory which is one of the typical conventions of a horror film. This also makes the audience feel sympathy towards the son as he looks so innocent and vulnerable. 

8) In this shot the audience are introduced to the ghost, which is one of the main focal points of the story, even though the audience only sees her hand and a her face for a short time before hand, the ghost appears in the modern day sector of the film. The over-the-shoulder shot portrays the ghost creeping up on the vulnerable mother, which also represents the mothers past haunting her over again. Here the tension is increased and the scene again darkens, to represent the evil that is haunting the mother.

9) The title 'Nemesis' means vengeance, which reflects the ghosts story-line. The ghost was killed in her 20's by her husband and wants revenge on any family that steps foot in the house by tearing them apart like what happened to her family. The title screen flashes up, with the sound of thunder playing in the background, which is a typical convention which makes a horror film scary. The text is blood-red and the  font gives the impression of blood dripping down, which reflects the film as it represents death. 

Evaluation Activity 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In this evaluation, I use Slide-share, in order to create a power point on how my media product will represent different social groups and the similarities and differences between the characters from the films, The Messengers and the Woman in Black who I used as inspiration for my film opening. 

Eval activity 2 from Kathryn Thornton

Evaluation Activity 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

For this evaluation I used prezi:

Evaluation Activity 4: Who would be the audience to your media product?

Who would be the audience to your media product?

Here is a spider diagram, I made on the audience who my film might attract to watch my film. In the poster there is information on the Gender, Social groups, Ethnicity and Religions, Age and Interest that my target audience might have which would interest them to watch my film.

Evaluation Activity 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience? 

In order to create a film for my Evaluation 5, I used a green screen so I had my film opening playing in the background when I was talking about the film opening and its audience. In this Evaluation, I looked at how my film would attract its target audience.

Evaluation Activity 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used canva in order to create my evaluation on how technologies have helped me create my media product:

Evaluation Activity 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

I used imovie, to compare my camera work and editing techniques from my Preliminary Task to my actual Film Opening.

Response the film opening showing

We had a film showing of the film openings at school and got them to rate it and say how I could improve. I am very pleased with the feedback I got overall and have edited the main parts that they suggested to change to make my film opening even better. 

Here is the results, on average, of audience feedback I received for my film opening:

The Editing Process

I am coming to the end of the editing process and want to reflect back on what I have done to so far. When I started editing my film opening, I did not know where to start and stuck to my storyboard like glue. As I eventually got started I found that It became easier and easier to edit certain things and explored different sound effects and visual effects I can do, which I have found extremely useful to add to the eeriness of my film opening.

As I go further and further into the editing I started to not stick to my storyboard as much as I did at first and started to have more and more ideas of what I could add to my film opening to make it even better. As soon as I added sound visual effects, sound effects, my logo, age rating and title screen I was ready to upload my first rough-cut. I got many positive reviews for my first rough-cut which pleased me and also I received some more ideas from my peers which would make my film opening better.

Once I had edited each scene to what I wanted it to look like, I found that some shots did not flow, so I spoke to Mrs Williams and we decided that we could add another scene in between. These scenes consisted of flashes between the past and the present and close ups on the ghosts face to make it more creepier. I then added subtitles such as the directors names and productions, and then added another rough-cut.

By the time it came to my third and final rough-cut before my final product. I added some creepy music to increase the tension and added more close ups. I have still got more sound editing and colour-grading to add before I upload my final product by the 15th of March 2017.

I have really enjoyed editing my film opening to make it as creepy and scary as possible. I have also learned lots about how to edit and what software I could use to edit my final product.

Nemesis Final Rough-cut

After some advice from a focal group I decided to film some more scenes in order to make the audience feel sorry for the mother after her sons murder.

Here is my final rough-cut:

New Ident!

After some feedback, I decided to change my logo to something more simplistic, as the focus group I showed it to, said it looked too much and not very professional.

Here is my new logo:

Nemesis - 3rd Rough-Cut

Here is my third Rough-Cut for my Film Opening:

Audience Feedback

I showed a rough-cut of my Film Opening to another focus group, to find out their feedback. The feedback was very positive which I am really pleased about especially because some of them were not that into horror films.

 

On the whole, they thought that the quick cross-cutting between the ghost and the little boy was very effective and scary. They also felt sorry for the main character, the mother, they said one of the contributing factors to this was the good acting. Furthermore, they thought that the make-up was very realistic and contributed to the scariness of the film opening.

 

The only negative comment was that they credits were too quick to come up, so they could not actually read the names. Due to this feedback I have now gone back to my editing to make each credit a longer duration.

2nd Rough Cut

Here is my second rough cut for my Film Opening:

Rough Cut

On Sunday the 8th of January 2017, I filmed my Horror Film Opening. I felt it went really well and chose great actors who suited their roles perfectly and were co-operative. My Filming took roughly 5 hours to complete and I am now about half way through the editing stage of my Film Opening. I also feel like the rooms I used and the layout they were in were perfect as it looked realistic like a normal house would do. 

Here is a rough outline of what my Film Opening is going to look like, I picked up a few suggestions from a focus group along the way. These suggestions will help my Film Opening to work more and fit together. I intend to now cut some of the clips shorter, change some clips speed, add voice overs, add sound effects and possibly add some music.

Here is my rough cut:

Voice-over script for filming

SHOT 12: *The mother* "I couldn't help him. I just stood there"

SHOT 14: *The mother* "Whilst she tossed him around like he was a toy"

SHOT 16: * The mother* "It's my fault"

SHOT 18: *The mother* "I could have stopped it"

SHOT 20: *The mother* "But it was too late*

SHOT 22: *The mother* "He was gone"

BARB

What is BARB?

• BARB is the Broadcaster's Audience Research Board.
• It is an organisation that complies audience measurement and television ratings in the UK.
• BARB is jointly owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. 
• Viewers that Participate in BARB have a box on top of their TV sets. These boxes track the programmes that they watch. 

Here are the weekly figures for some of the different channels:

Here are the Weekly figures of what people watch on ITV:

Also, here are the weekly viewing figures for BBC:

Here is a video on how BARB knows who is watching and what they are watching:

How does BARB know who is watching and what they are watching? from BARB on Vimeo.

Actors Make-up

Here are pictures of how the actress playing the ghost and the actor playing the little boy were made-up for filming my Film Opening:

Risk Assessment

For my Filming I had to do a risk assessment to ensure I knew all of the risks that could affect my actors and my Filming. Therefore, I could show what I would do to minimise the risks of the stunts and other factors in my filming. 

Filming Timetable

Here is my timetable for my Filming Day on the 8th of January. This timetable will help me to stick to a certain amount of time for each set of shots. It will also help me keep track of what shots I have done and not done.