This year for my A2 film studies project I decided upon making a short film in its entirety in the genre of phycological thriller. The film was to be a short film or the opening to a film, not a trailer, of at least five minutes in duration that shows the conventions of a certain genre. I have had experience in creating films of the horror, action and ‘based upon a true story’ genre’s so far. It is for this reason I decided that I wanted to be able to use my editing skills and my camera skills more as well as working in a group with other like minded individuals that had skills in the pre production side of film studies because this is where my skills lack.

My aim for this film was to create a piece that instills disorientation and fear into the audience. In order to create a feeling of disorientation I made sure that I completed appropriate research to assist me with the envisioning of my film. I looked at a range of films from the horror and thriller genre in order to help me with all aspects of my film that I would need to research. For the cinematography side of my film, such as the camera angles and editing techniques I might use I looked at the film

‘Shrooms’. This film is about a group of teenagers that go camping and take illegal hallucinogenic drugs and a murder takes advantage and picks them off one by one. I looked at this film to get an idea of how to portray hallucination and disorientation, it proved to be most helpful because I learnt a lot about colour correction and camera angles.  The next film I looked at for its narrative content from a thriller point of view was the film ’Taken’. This film is about a father and his mission to rescue is daughter that is traveling abroad after being kidnapped and sold into a human trafficking ring. The film uses a wide range of camera techniques as well as a powerful and well laid out narrative, this was also very helpful to my studies because of its narrative content. The last film I looked at was during the editing stage because I was struggling with sound editing. Although I am usually quite good at finding appropriate sound tracks that suite my films and manipulating the sound to enhance my films I was unsure of what type of soundtrack I would need for this particular genre of film. It is for this precise reason I watched the modern remake of when a stranger calls. This film is very powerful and is a psychological horror/thriller. I watched it because I remembered that when I had watched it previously the sound had been very powerful and memorable to me. When I watched the film again I found that the soundtrack was made up of modern classical music that lightly played in the background and the opening of the film inspired my opening. I used a piece of modern classical music by Ludovico Einauldi which once again was received very well by the audience because they felt it created unease and led them into a sense of false security.

The films I looked at during the research stage of my film project largely influenced my project as a whole. Each film I looked at in turn gave me inspiration and insight into the genre I was delving into. I completed a lot of analytical research because I wanted to make sure that I got grasped the genre conventions and how to present them to the audience properly and based upon my audience feedback I think I achieved my goal.

During the construction stage we came across a lot of problems with acting availability and equipment whereby we experienced technical difficulty  but were able to overcome these problems by creating contingency plans. As an individual and as a group I found that we learnt a lot. Our time keeping and organisational skills were greatly tested because we had to make sure that we met our deadlines for this project.

Overall I am very pleased with our completed project because I feel that it meets the demands of the target audience and represents the genre as we wanted it to. The final edit of our film is quite different to the script. As a director I had to make a lot of creative decisions in both production and editing in regards to the script because there were scenes that we could not complete due to various setbacks. There was also a scene in the production stage that was meant to be at the end where the girl is found by a boy and his dog but we decided that the film might be more powerful if she just turned up at home with no recollection of how she got there because it might make the film more mysterious to the audience. During production we also decided to add a few scenes for contingency purposes. We shot an alternate ending where the girls mother is consoling her at the end and then the kidnappers come to the victims door and the film ends. We decided in editing however, that the scene did not hold the right message for the film and it gave too much away, we wanted to keep mystery behind the film so we edited that scene out. We also shot extra point of view shots that were not planned because the location we were at and the time of day we were filming was perfect for them. The point of view shots we took as an extra actually ended up making it to the final edit because we felt that they created a feeling of disorientation and that they had worked better than we expected. The point of view shots in my opinion as a camera person and an editor are some of the most powerful shots of the film and I think that they really help to make the audience feel the disorientation emotion of the victim herself. I feel that making the changes we did on location and during the editing stage were very well received. Judging from our focus group questionnaire I think that the audience felt more tension and unease because the point of view shots really helped them to empathise with the protagonist. I also think that the audience liked the fact that you never get to find out what actually happens to the girl and that it is a mystery.

My short film is in the genre of physiological thriller and there are many other media products that can be compared to it because it is such a popular genre. I feel that films such as ‘Shrooms’ and ‘Taken’ can be compared to my film not only because my films where directly influenced by them but because I have used similar conventions to those used in these particular films. I feel that my film is similar to these because I have used a similar style of editing of ‘Shrooms’. In ‘Shrooms’ they use colour correction to create a dreary hallucinogenic feel, this is exactly what I tried to do with selected scenes from my film. During the point of view shots I used colour correction to make the shots very bright and colourful as well as using a time delay filter called trails to make the audience see what the victim would be seeing at that point in time. As for ‘Taken’ I think my film can be compared to this because it has a similar narrative and is also of the ‘kidnap’ genre of films. However I think that my film is different from it in the aspect that my film concentrates on the ordeal of the victim not on the revenge of the family and loved ones.

In terms of audience reception, based on my peer focus group I feel that my film was very well received by the audience and that they were able to pick up on the messages and my film had the desired affect upon them. For my focus group I asked a total of five males and five females between the ages of 15-25 because this age range was the main target audience. I asked them how the film made them   feel and if the enjoyed it as well as if what age they felt the film was aimed at.  In terms of emotional response the focus group all agreed that the film made them feel very uneasy and frightened. I was very pleased with this result because this is the desired effect I wanted for my film. I also was very pleased that they mostly rated the film as a 15 with a few rating it as a 12 because this was the age group that we felt the film was to be aimed at. I was also quite happy to learn that most of the people questioned said that they would watch the film if it was released commercially. However interestingly, all of the people questioned that said thy would not were female and stated that they didn’t like horror because it was to scary and that they wouldn’t like t see this film in the cinema because it is too scary. This was a very good response I feel because although not many people expressed an interest in watching it I think that it is good that the reason they would not watch it is because they do not like the genre rather than them not liking it because it was not a good film.

I feel that overall my film was quite successful and that we made a film that was very audience orientated and appealed to our audience very positively. I think that we were able to meet the conventions of the genre and create a film that did exactly what we wanted it to do.

I looked at four different songs

1. Stained glass eyes by A farewell fire, a fast paced rock song with a nice meoldic breakdown that would be very apropriate for our film

2. Suicide by Next stop earth, a heavy metal tune with a fast paced ryhthm and angry vocals, good but not soft enough for our film

3. halo by USH, another heavy metal track similar to the last, also to heavy for our film

4. Can’t Breathe by kallen, a soft acoustic song with hauting lyrics and nice reverb on the vocals, maybe usefull for a slow outro song during the closing credits.

I also looked at some other websites in order to help me gather some effects and sound loops for my film.

the first website I looked at was:

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/free_music_loops.shtml

I did not find this website very useful because the loops and effects didn’t have the right feel for my film.

the second website i looked at was: http://derekaudette.ottawaarts.com/music.php

After a long search to no avail I decided to do some research on horror movie openings in order to find some inspiration for my film and get an idea of the type of music that usually plays in the background.

this is the opening for “when a stranger calls” after watching the opening credits to the this i realised that classical instrumental music is the type of music i needed for my film. So, I have already found a fast paced rock track for the soundtrack at the end of the film so now I needed some ambient music to help create the appropriate mood for my piece. With this in mind i searched the internet for some royalty free classical music that would help me with my film to create mood and atmosphere.

Since it’s Dawn and rise in the past decades the Internet has impacted many industries affecting revenue and distribution of each in turn. Now, as modern users abandon old traditional methods of such tasks as renting a film, buying music and reading news the most recent industry to feel the impact of the modern online age is the newspaper industry.

In the past newspapers and the radio were the only way of receiving Vital world news. Then as the technology evolved, we had the daily television broadcasts, then along came the Internet where people could read the daily news but this wasn’t the decline of newspaper print yet. It is in recent years that with the invention of laptops, ipads, kindles and smart phones such as the iPhone that have seen the newspaper sales rapidly declining in the last decade. Users can now view all their daily news at the touch of a button on their iPhone, iPad or kindle using Internet applications to visit the websites of newspapers such as the sun, the times, the guardian or the independent. Now that users can access daily news for free and on the go less and less people especially younger media audiences are conforming to the traditional method of picking up a newspaper from a newsstand on their way to work or buying a morning paper from the newsagent . This it seems has been the reason that newspapers are now fighting to stay alive with companies such as the independent having to make redundancies in order to stay on the shelves. The decline of newspaper circulation in the UK alone has fallen by 25% since 2007 and 30% in the US, these astounding figures bring into focus the rapid decline the newspaper industry has had to struggle with.

So with this in mind what are newspaper companies doing to claw back their revenue and win back customers from the online age. In recent years the sun has employed Marketing ploys such as free giveaways starting schemes such as ‘the sun holidays’ where readers can get cheaper holidays by collecting tokens If they buy the newspaper everyday for so many days. As well as this The Mail on Sunday signed a deal with Mcfly to release their album Radio:Active in their paper as a supplement on July 8th 2008, giving away 2.4 million copies of their album. The circulation of the paper went up by 300,000 on that day alone. As well as marketing ploys Rupert Murdoch has taken british newspaper The Times into the online age making it now possible to purchase the newspaper online as a document via your kindle. It is this type of innovation that shows how desperate the newspaper industry is becoming as it tries to win back some of its revenue.

The future of technology could now see the death of traditional newsprint and the evolution of media whereby all users view their daily news and weekly gossip magazines through the handheld comfort of the kindle, ipad or iphone. But with business big wigs such murdoch trying their damnedest to win back revenue and move forward with the times could this just be evolution of news not the death of it?

For research our group orginally looked at the following radio spots for previous films of a similar genre to ours,

After reviewing my research for inspiration I wrote three drafts of a script for the radio trailer.

Podcast Script Draft 1

SFX: Eerie Music

Voice Over :

Every year hundreds of people disappear

SFX: Sounds of a struggle, then a female Scream

SFX: Heavy breathing

Voice Over:

And sometimes, just sometimes, the lucky ones come back

SFX:

Three seconds of scripted silence

Girls voice:

Help me, somebody help!

SFX: Closing door

SFX:

silence

Voice Over:

Get lost this easter at a cinema near you

Eerie voice:

78, How long will you be gone for?

Podcast Script Draft 2

GIRLS VOICE :

Hello?

(2 second pause)

GIRLS VOICE (UNSETTLED TONE):

Is anybody there?

(2 second pause)

GIRLS VOICE (GROWING AGITATED):

Please help me, I, I don’t know where I am…

(3 second pause)

GIRLS VOICE (DISTRAUGHT, SCARED):

Please, somebody, I know your there please help me!

SFX:

Female crying, carries on for five seconds then fades out

SFX:

Eerie music

VOICE OVER:

78, go missing this easter at a cinema near you.

(3 second silence)

SFX:

Female scream

Podcast Script Draft 3

SFX: Sounds of a struggle, then a female Scream

SFX: Heavy breathing

GIRLS VOICE :

Hello? Is anybody there?

(3 second pause)

GIRLS VOICE (DISTRAUGHT, SCARED):

Please, somebody, I know your there please help me!

SFX:

Female crying, carries on for five seconds then fades out

SFX: Closing door

SFX:

silence

Voice Over:

Get lost this easter at a cinema near you

Eerie voice:

78, How long will you be gone for?

Personally, I reviewed our script and as the projects director I thought that this was important because it allowed me to collaborate with my writer and group member to discuss my opinions and requirements for the script. I requested that a particular scene be changed because it felt as though it lacked the element of horror and thrill that the film needed in order to keep with themes and ideals that we agreed the film needed in order to be successful in creating a hallucinatory feel of thrill and horror. We agreed that adding in a few extra moments of hallucination and changing a bit of dialogue would give the project the feel it needed.

screen-test-questionnaire

Once we handed these out we viewed each questionnaire and looked at the results as a whole and began compiling a report based on our findings. Although we did not finish this in the early stages we found that a majority of the poeple we asked did not think the music suited the purpose and that the majority of people also prefered the film in colour.

In this focus group we will take a group of our peers aged 16-18 and show them our screen tests then give them a questionnaire based on this in  order to receive feedback tailored to our needs in terms of production.

screen-test-questionnaire

Results

As a group we approached nine of our peers and gave them the questionnaire linked above. The results we very helpful because they did actually give us a very good idea of the way people reacted emotionally to the tests that we created.