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.