INHABITANT - Horror Opening Scene G321

Inhabitant - Opening Sequence (Commentary)

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

We used paint.net to trial out fonts for  "INHABITANT" by picking several types of fonts that connote the horror genre. This was a simple step as it was pretty self explanatory technology, as we had knowledge and experience of this software. 
Firstly our Film consists of several types of Technology, that are used in order to achieve a smooth cut finished product. Over the past few months in approach to the final film, we progressed our skills with editing and the using of Technology, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, CANON 700D, Blogger, and lastly Paint.Net. 

The next technology used in our production was the CANON 700D, which was most probably the most significant piece of our film, as this was the camera used to film the opening sequence. Although we had little experience in this camera, we quickly adapted to its capabilities in order to achieve the best outlook we could possibly have with our little knowledge. This camera had a lens which enabled us to zoom and focus precisely, which was shown especially in the beginning in the packing scene. This shows our skills in camera work and movement, as we used a variation of stills and handheld. The use of these two techniques enabled an engagement with the audience as we are shown two sides to the story, one being the characters, as they "vlog" themselves, and also a "behind the scenes/film" outlook through the stills that were filmed mainly on the tripod. This camera was also used when filming the Actor interviews, as we wanted a professional clean and slick finish, which would make the whole production look real, as opposed to a quickly edited and filmed video on an iPhone, however this would still be able to achieve a realistic shot, we decided to go all for it. However in this interview, we used an additional microphone which gave a crisp quality sound, which made the audience feel as if it was a real interview. Black out cuts were used to add in questions that were asked throughout the interview, this was achieved by Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015. 
The additional microphone was however used in our final film, but only in the beginning scene, as this consisted of dialogue. Looking back on this, we should have used it throughout the whole film, as our camera lacked pure sounding audio. This is something we can look into in our future productions. We did not use the microphone to an extent, as it was a lot of effort setting up, as this was a microphone used for recording music and instruments, plus it was hard getting the audio and dubbing over the original sound so that it was perfectly in sync as the film consisted of several jump cuts. However, using an additional microphone was not so much needed, as the handheld parts of the films audio was dimmed down to conform to a home movie camcorder effect.



Secondly, we are introduced to the editing software "Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015" of which we had access to at my house on my laptop. I bought this software in order for us to professionally edit together our film, however also at home, other than just at school using their computers. This is shown off through our high use of editing and effects, which would allow the audience to see its progress on a professional software such as Adobe. We feel as we achieved this in our final production, as we can see this through different editing techniques that aren't achievable in such software such as "Windows Movie Maker". Editing, for Eleanor  was quite easy , as she has had several past experiences in editing,and having an older brother who studies media studies she learnt some knowledge in editing from him. This also benefited me as she taught me new editing techniques, which helped us work together and edit the film, using the knowledge we both had, with also the additional YouTube tutorials when it came to special effects. 


Throughout this year, we developed our skills in Blogger, where we would weekly post blogs on our research, panning, and production...At the start of this year, we had little knowledge, You will be able to see throughout our blogs, our knowledge in using these software has developed, which shows our learning and skill development throughout this course 

   

Class Feedback for our Film - G321

we had our media class watch the opening of our film INHABITANT and then give us feedback on it afterwards as it would be very useful since they are the age group of our target audience. Most of the feedback was very positive, they said that they liked the setting of the dark attic as it made them feel claustrophobic and vulnerable and Hannah said that setting our film in a home was a good idea as it made it more "personal" as the audience can "relate" to the setting. Also we got good feedback on the use of our jump cuts, and how we edited the scenes in the attic to create distortion. mos of them agreed that we achieved a successful build up to the climax at the end, we achieved this by having slow paced titles and having our character film insignificant objects in the attic and slowly pann the camera to the right with a torch to create tension. How ever we also got feedback giving us tips on how we could improve our film. Luke said we could include  more still shots in our film to create variety as most of the scene is done by hand to connote home footage. Also Shonam advised us that we should of included more credits informing the audience who stars in this film the producers, Directors and script writers and more, this was one of our faults as we only included a small amount of credits at the end of the scene and they lasted only a few seconds.

Comparison of preliminary task and Opening scene to INHABITANT

This is our first significant shot in our preliminary task. We chose to start of with a close up shot done by hand filming a mysterious character opening a door handle. we used the school camera to film this shot so the sound was not best quality. There is also non diegetic background music playing which is quiet and eerie this creates suspense.

we continued to film our main character from the back so it would create a sense of mystery and leave our audience wondering who this person is and what they are hiding. The idea of creating mystery was then later developed in creating and editing INHABITANT as our supernatural being is rarely revealed in the opening scene , the dark attic that the supernatural being lingers in connotes danger and mystery. We also used an effect called ''bad tv transition" which enabled us to create distortion in a significant shot in the attic when the camera pans to the right and the audience catch a quick glimpse of the ghostly figure the distortion effect quickly comes in interrupting the footage and making it unclear of what the audience can see therefore emphasising on the mystery of this supernatural being as we rarely get to see its front. We also improved our sound quality for INHABITANT as in addition to using our camera microphone  we also used a music recording microphone which enabled a sharper quality sound. However this was only shown through the beginning scenes in INHABITANT. This was achieved by dubbing over the original sound . We also progressed our filming technique by using a tripod to achieve still shots where as in our preliminary task the filming was quite shaky. We also used jump cuts effectively in INHABITANT as it made the cross cutting of scenes smoother and quicker also creating pace to our opening scene. Where as in our preliminary task we did not film enough frames for there to be slick cross cutting we also had very little knowledge of editing and creating jump cuts effectively. The first title shot in the beginning of our preliminary task is very plane and only lasts one second. We improved our use of titles in our film opening as we had more knowledge of editing the font so we used the clockwork effect on Adobe premier to create a a clockwise appearing font that is revealed slowly connoting mystery and lasting longer then the titles used in our first task.   

 

How has my Film opening represented social groups.

Teenagers and young adults are usually represented as Naive,reckless and quite unintelligent in horror films. For example in Nightmare on Elm street the teenagers where always seeking for danger instead of avoiding it for example they would follow the sound of the villains voice and they would keep everything a secret from adult figures like their parents in the films . In every single film of the nightmare on Elm street series the teenagers would always be involved in sexual activities.That is also usually when they would be killed by the Antagonist is usually right in the middle of them having or sex or right before or after. This would suggest to the audience that antagonists would usually target the reckless teenagers who are immoral.

  

Another example of a cliché representation of teenagers is seen in "It follows" which is one of the films which influenced us in making "INHABITANT" the teenagers in "it follows" are represented as reckless and dumb as the main character has sex with multiple people and they make stupid decisions like towards the end when they plan to take lots of electronic devices to a swimming pool and plug them in so that they can chuck it in the swimming pool when the antagonist jumps in the pool to attack the victim who is the main character. How ever there plan was very dangerous and risky and it ends up back firing and almost causing the main character to die. The girls in "it follows are also veru sexualised with their costumes being revealing as the main character is always wearing a swimming costume or she is seen in her famous sexy pink lingerie.
However in INHABITANT our two main characters who are two young adult girls. They are represented in ways which challenge but also conform to the general stereotype of Teenagers in horror movies.

our first character "Lisa" is portrayed as quite sensible as she is dressed modestly and unpacking all the boxes and encouraging her partner Ellie to do so also. her clothing is very modest and casual this subverts from the stereotype of girls being over sexualized in horror movies and she her behaviour is seen as acceptable as she is doing what she is supposed to be doing instead of looking for trouble or acting "dumb", therefore she challenges the general representation. However the second character Ellie is portrayed as quite silly and immature as she is filming Lisa un packing and instead of helping her she is laughing and messing about with the camera and even "flirting slightly with Lisa. This conforms to the stereotype of teenagers being irresponsible and acting as sex symbols. Ellie also seems to lack common sense in INHABITANT as she lingers in the attic more then she should when the lights mysteriously turn off in the attic instead of exiting the attic and telling Lisa about it she lingers in the Attic and searches around with a tiny torch. She is attacked in the attic and as the audience we hear her falling dropping the camera and also screaming, this demonstrates Ellie as a vulnerable character. We chose to do this as it is conventional for horror films as girls are usually portrayed as vulnerable as there are many significant shots of girls running away and falling down with high angle shots so that the girls look vulnerable. Ellie conforms to the general stereotype of girls being victimised in horror films, we had the character Ellie pan the camera upwards in a low angle shot to reveal the supernatural being so that the ghostly figure looks overpowering and intimidating also creating the representation of vulnerable and weak for Ellie.

 

Ninth screen grab

This is our ninth screen grab from INHABITANT. It is a medium shot that is filmed in the dark attic we used the torch on the characters phone as a source of light as she slowly panned to right with her torch, it created a tense atmosphere and then when the camera revealed a figure in white in the right hand side, we edited this shot so that it would have a glitching effect that causes distortion and indicates that there is bad connection. This editing was very effective in this shot as it makes the audience feel scared as they didn't clearly see what that figure was and it makes them wonder "what was that?" The distortion used in this shot also emphasises the realism of the hand made footage and suggests that the camera could stop filming at any moment leaving the audience tense to find out what happens to this character.  

8th screengrab

This is our eighth screen grab from INHABITANT opening. It is a shot that is taken right after there is a black out in the attic as the lights have mysterious turned off. Our main character then used the torch on her phone as a source f light so that the camera can reveal what's in front of her. We decided to have a shot of the camera focused on a white box in front of the character while everything else in the attics surroundings is in darkness. This is an effective shot as it creates suspense as the light is only shinning on irrelevant objects making the audience fear what else is in the darkness. As the the character in this scene is made to feel vulnerable as she can only see a limited amount of what she shines her torch on. We also increased the time at the bottom corner of the shot to inform the audience that time is passing and that it is getting later into the night which connotes danger we did the by using VCR digital font that conformed to a typical handmade footage.

seventh screengrab

This is our seventh screen grab of our INHABITANT opening. It is a medium establishing shot of the attic the story is based around.In this shot we added a downloaded font with the time and date at the bottom corner so this suggests that filming is being done by hand by the main character at this point suggesting this is a home-made footage. This was effective as we were able to control the time and date and we chose a time in the evening so that it connotes danger as scary things usually happen at night time making this character more vulnerable. In this shot we can see a dim lit attic that is full of clutter such as old cardboard boxes and wood.the far end of the attic how ever is dark and this makes the audience curious as we cant clearly see what is in all of the attic.

sixth screengrab

This is our sixth screen grab of our opening scene. It is  Black out shot that cuts in between the scenes of Ellie going up the attic. It included the title of the institution we have a synergy with. We chose to have the credits shots in between scenes so that they are used to cross cut from one shot to the other. This helped increase the pace of the scene by jumping from the scene to shots of the credits it would leave the audience on the edge of their seat.  We used block white font for our clockwork productions so that they stand out on the black background.

fifth screengrab

This is our 5th significant screen grab. Before this shot we had a blackout shot of our credits reading "in association with" then there is a quick jump cut that takes us back the scene and it is a shot of Ellie pulling down the metal stairs from the attic. We zoomed in the camera so that it is a close up shot of the metal stairs and we did a panning shot where the camera panned down the stairs as she pulled them down. The sharp sound of the metal stairs scraping was recorded and added on top of footage so that the sound was louder and in better quality. As this sound of the stairs scrapping added to the eerie mood. This shot is also effective as we see the characters face looking up into the attic with a curious expression indicating that this is the first time she is entering the attic making the audience wonder what the attic is like.

forth screen grab

This our forth significant screen grab as it is a medium shot of the character Ellie holding the box and looking up at the attic. This is an important shot as it is the only shots of the opening scene which are not done by hand and are filmed on a tripod to get a stable shot, this is also the first moment where we see the character Ellie who was initially filming in the beginning shot with her camera this is suggested as she wear the camera around her neck. And she holds the green box that was handed to her by the other character. we made sure that our tripod was placed away from the mirror so that the reflection of the tripod was not shown on the mirror as that would risk breaking the illusion for the audience.

third screengrab

This is our third significant shot of our opening of INHABITANT it is a black out that is used to cross cut from the first scene to the second. And in this cross cut we decided to include our film institutions credits. We used bold white font to make our film institution stand out more. we also used clockwork effect to make our film institution appear slowly in a distorted way which links in with the tense distorted mood of our film.

second screen grab

This is our second significant shot as it is a close up shot of the green box that the character Lisa holds in this scene the camera zooms in to box and then zooms in even further into an extreme close up shot of the box and then zooms out again. This was done so that the Audience focus on this object and it creates mystery as the audience will question why this box is so important?. The character Lisa is having dialogue with Ellie the character holding the camera and she tells her to put the box up in the attic as it belongs there, the close up shot of this box suggests that this taking this box might cause something to happen to Ellie and foreshadows the events that happen in the attic with the ghost. The use of editing is also evident in this shot as the edited font at the corner of the screen displaying the time and date of this footage supports the illusion that it is real footage.

Evaluation Feedback

At this stage I am expecting to have seen more from you to have been uplodaded - so get everything you've worked on - screengrabs and responses and suchlike - on this blogpage!

In your responses to your final production make sure you are clearly referring to choices and outcomes in an evaluative way - make sure you are addressing the areas outlined by me below:

What did you do? Explain a transition or effect you opted for in the editing process.  What effect did you achieve?  Explain how the choice you made was intended to make the target audience think or feel.  How does this show progression in your use of skills? Explain how this is better than your AS production's outcomes by linking to what you did in your portfolio last year.

These choices are really important for you to reflect on to show you fully understand how you have developed your skills - and make sure you evaluate the comments made by the test audience (the class) using specialist terminology.

We do not have long until the deadline, Easter Monday, for this final stage of your portfolio - so make sure you are pushing yourself and achieving the marks your efforts this year deserve!

Presenting our Films Initial Ideas - G321

                                             
Here me and my Co-directing partner Eleanor are Presenting our film Inhabitant including our very first initial ideas and what we changed and why,The location we filmed at and the obstacles we faced alongside the strengths of our production. Our first initial idea was to set our film in the local woods as we thought this setting would connote horror how ever we changed our mind as filming in the woods in Autumn could be very inconvenient for us as we could not control the weather that would have an impact on our production for instance if it started raining or if the wind was too strong. Also as we were filming our film towards the end of October the time we could film for was restricted due to how long the sun would be out for as it would usually get dark buy 4pm. Another factor that influenced us to change our minds on the setting was competition with the other films as a lot of other films done by our classmates were set in the woods therefore in order to give our film a unique selling point we tried to make our film more original.If had the chance to carry on filming the rest of our film the film story line would be about two young adults moving in to a new house and then realizing that there is a ghost of a girl who lived their before them , the  young couple are haunted by this ghosts past in the house  and they both start loosing their sanity as they cant afford to buy a new house but they may not survive any longer if they continue to live in this house through out the film the audience follows the couples journey into insanity. Our film was set in a house that had an attic we thought this was perfect setting for our movie as it supported our story line of girls moving into new house, we thought that by having the story set in a household and having scenes of the film filmed by hand home made footage it would appeal more to our target audience as it is a modern set idea so our audiences could relate more to the characters in this film as having it in a household makes it personal.It was also a convenient location as the house we filmed in is near to where me and Eleanor live about 5 minutes by car also as in that house we could control the lighting and weather would not disrupt us. The obstacles we had to overcome was filming in the attic that was the scene that took up the most time because at one point in the attic we have to turn of the light and it is pitch black so it was hard to film and as an actor is was hard to position myself in the attic as i could not see where I was and i got frightened. That was when the idea of using the torch on our phone emerged as When the character Eleanor was playing is in the attic and the lights turned of she pulls out her phone and puts on the torch on it so what ever she shines the torch on is visible to the camera.Also getting the pop up scene at the end of the film as accurate as we possibly could as we wanted to create a very quick shot of The supernatural beings face popping up on the camera as Eleanor pans up the camera we had to re do that shot many times and we had to edit with sound to make the shot effective. I would say that the strengths of our production would be the editing we used to create the home footage effect where the footage would suddenly buzz out because of bad connection that made it seem very realistic also the font we used to create the time and date of the footage makes it more personal to our audience as if they are watching real footage,alongside that we used clean jump cuts.  

Evaluation Task 1

 

This is the first significant shot of our Film it is a medium shot, we chose this to be our first significant shot as it is effective in establishing the story line. As in this shot it gives the character Lisa prevalence meaning the audience will sympathize with this character and identify her as an important character.We also edited the first shot with VCR digital font to make it seem like home footage. This shot has bright constant lighting from the light bulb in the room. We chose to shoot the first opening in a medium shot in this room of the house as it had no bedroom furniture in the room, this would be effective in  supporting our story line of "moving into a house" as it suggests that we are still packing hence the cardboard boxes used as props.