The problems faced whilst filming

During the filming process for our horror movies, we encountered many problems, however the worst problem by far was the lighting.
As we were filming during Autumn, the sun kept setting in awkward times, mostly around 4pm, which gave us a 40 minute period of time to actually film an entire film, which set us back considerably.
The original timing for our film was to start on a Tuesday, and finish either on the Wednesday or at a push, Thursday. Instead it took us until the following Tuesday to finish filming.
However after the filming, we noticed that in one scene it was very dark, and then all of the sudden it was bright again, due to the early sunset. This was quite a pain for us as those two scenes were awkward to film and as a result were awkward to re film. Even more so, as the tripod we had the second time was very loose and so it was difficult to get a shot steady and keep it steady.
The third problem was the setting. Although it was perfect for our film, we had to work around the forest, this lead to many problems such as angles, keeping the tripod level and sometimes would require us to climb into bushes and up trees to get the appropriate shot.
Finally we had to tear Craig's jeans for the final shots, but we forgot to bring a knife and scissors. This led to a series of events that would fit a comedy film, but at the time, it was everything but funny.
The first thing we tried was breaking through the fabric using big pieces of wood, which were all cold, and damp (some of which with things I care not to mention) and ultimately we failed with that idea.
Finally we just decided to knock around the surrounding area asking people to cut Craig's jeans with a knife. Surprisingly we found somebody to do it with the first knock, but his children were curious about the filming, and while we were filming, he and his children came down to watch us film.
This was quite a problem as they were softly talking and when they approached they broke sticks ruining the shot. We allowed them to stay in return for doing us this favour, and in the end they left quite a short while after arriving, but it delayed us about 10 minutes, and we had to pack up early because of the sunset.
In summary, with all the above problems (and all of the dog muck), we got quite a valuable insight into how much harder it is to film a movie as we initially imagined.

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?

Back in October we started filming our Preliminary Task, which required us to use basic shot types and editing. Since then we have learned various conventions and shot types mentioned in my previous blogs.
In class we were asked "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?"
In our preliminary task the camera uses simple techniques such as tracking, the shot reverse shot and static shots. We used basic edits such as jump cuts and progressive cuts, there was no music and the video clip itself was very brief. We also learned how to fully use Adobe Premier, covering cuts, to titles and other various editing techniques.

Since then we have filmed one film and then finally our horror movie, and I believed I have learned quite a bit about camera motions, the correct types of shots for each feeling and scene, and to film with editing in mind:

In this shot we filmed the sky for roughly around 7 seconds in order to edit a title in later.

We also learned quite a bit about editing the film, which involves creating titles and incorporating them into the film appropriately using

transitions  and motion control.Music was another thing we have learned in regards to our editing, as we were able to place music and cut it down to fit the video, whereas the thought didn't even occur to us to use music, even though the soundtrack adds to the atmosphere.Finally we learned how to add titles adequately. In our preliminary task we only used one title, which was my name, exam number and the title "Preliminary task".

Naturally we have advanced since then, and now we know how to add film titles in various fonts, distort the fonts, make the titles move and fade in and out.

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

In the initial filming process, we had to use various pieces of equipment, such as the tripod, to get a straight and even surface to shoot on:

The tripod was irritating at the beginning of the year because they were really small, and aside from the small hand crank, I was unaware you could raise it, so whenever we used the tripod, it was one of us lying or crouching down to operate it. Thankfully, however, we learned that the legs were extendable before we started this horror, otherwise the filming process would have been awkward indeed!
In this photo I am just filming around the area for two reasons, the first reason is because it was getting dark and I needed to see if we could film in the lighting, the second reason was to check for the tripod's stability.
Using the tripod was a challenge at first because I didn't realise that the legs extended. Fortunately though I figured this out before we started filming. The only tripod problem we encountered was that one of the legs was ridiculously stiff, and so we literally had Craig holding one end and me pulling on the leg to extend it, and then having to bash it against a tree to get it to go retract.
The second thing that we used (And quite possibly the most important) was the camera itself.

In this shot I am preparing to film the sequence where the masked murderer is hiding behind a tree, even though it is not very subtle, I believe this worked in the long run. The camera itself was a very handy piece of equipment; it had zoom, which we found incredibly useful when filming the end sequence. It also had a few features that we left out of the film, such as night vision.
The cameras were incredibly handy for the filming, and also 100% necessary, so it was good that we had good cameras.

The camera we were using throughout was a Sony Handycam Carl Zeiss:

These cameras are relatively simple to operate which was good when I started this course earlier this year, as I was worried I would push the wrong buttons and break the unit. However, my concerns were unfounded, and as of such, the filming process was relatively simple in the early days; even though editing was my problem in actually fitting the film together back then.

Thirdly there were props and costumes:

Although this wasn't the costume we used in the end, it does show a lot of the props, such as the white mask the murderer wore in the final scene. This mask was kindly rent to us by the drama department, at the time we thought we were the only ones with this mask, however most people used the mask in their filming also.

The second prop is the knife in Craig's hand.

This knife toy was originally brought for a costume day long back in Primary School where I went in as Peter Pan. It did come in handy for the filming however, as it is retractable, so it looked like we were stabbing him.

The problem with the knife we used was that it was very old, and so the plastic had become frail and delicate. As of such we needed to be very careful. We still managed to break the knife halfway through filming, although luckily, I make models and had glue at my home, and we stuck the blade back on and finished filming.

After the filming we went into college and edited together our film using Adobe Premier, this was really useful because it is a professional recording booth, and thus allowed us to tinker with the slightest detail, eventually allowing us to edit the film together almost seamlessly.

I must have learned something important during my time with this program though because I was lost the first time I used it; there are many options for editing; the most constantly used ones we used were the cross fades during many cuts and edits, and we also attempted ghosting but it messed with our film's outcome, and as a result, we removed this effect from the film. Overall, we used many effects that initially I found overwhelming, this was especially challenging for me, as I had never used Publisher before until literally 3 or so months ago, and I believe that I have learned an incredible amount about the program since then and over time though I've become much more fluent with this program, and can now use it confidently and make films carefully and very specifically.

Finally we had to create a company logo, in the end we settled with bloodthirsty productions and we had a corpse climbing out of a grave.

This logo was created by Craig Robson, although I had made a few early drafts, which you can see here. This is an incredible improvement I think, as I, like Publisher, had never used photoshop before this year, and with such a precise and immense program, I was completely overwhelmed by all of the functions, and at first I believed nothing would work. Now, I can make relatively simple images, although I have much to learn, I still believe I had come a long way since the beginning of this year. I also have the program at home so I can practice there as well, which comes in handy for many reasons.

How did you attract/address your audience?

In class today we were discussing how our film would attract the target audience, and so we uploaded the videos to youtube and annotated them.

The reason that our film will attract our target audience is because our target is the mainstream audience enjoys stereotypical horror movies and our film uses many common conventions from the horror genre.
In regards to our target audience, because it is an independant film and as of such will be cheaper than the main hollywood horrors.

Who would be the target of your media product?

After some discussion both Craig and I decided our target audience would be males age 18 - 25, on account of the gore and the themes of the horror movies.
We used a chart to decide our demographic's income bracket, it ranged A to E.

Using this chart we were able to decide the income demographic for our audiences.
Below is a photograph of our main demograpic:

The income bracket is the earnings that they make, E is students and unemployed people and D is the blue collar workers; the workers who are semi skilled and usually manual. This is because my main demographic for my audience are students, and so they wouldn't be working anything over a D job during their studies.

These two are unemployed, so their income brakcet is E, I am targeting this demographic because females in particular enjoy horror movies and so they are more likely to go and see the film.

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

In our media class we did voiceovers for our movies which describes movie companies that would publish our films.
Below is our voiceover and script:

Craig: Our film company was called “Bloodthirsty Productions” and the logo shows a corpse emerging from the ground. This creates an atmosphere for our movie, as it is a horror film and as of such, will contain gore and other similar themes of horror.
Michael: Our movie is a common type of horror film, it features a slasher type villain, and unsuspecting teens. They share similar conventions to large, well known films such as Scream and Friday 13^th and as a result we believe there are many companies who would publish our film.
Craig: Many of these companies can be found on the internet, or at independent film festivals. Websites such as Dead4movie.com – a website for independent films to be published on for free – can be a hot spot for agents to spot raw talent and potential.
Michael: Production companies are large businesses like any other, they seek talent and in return want a share on the profits. These companies provide distributors and they market and, as the title suggests, distribute the film once it is finished.
Michael: Film roles are important regarding their position as the director takes the helm of the product but without editors, actors, and cameramen, there is no way the director can produce a film. This is why teamwork and organization is very important in a film making process.
Michael: There are many things in our film that are common amongst other independent films, and big budget films alike. Here in this scene you can see Craig falling over and crawling away as the villain approaches. This is a very common stereotype in horror films, and while these conventions are commonly parodied and mocked, people do like stereotypical scenes, this is why we used it.
 Craig: When people make independent films they take a gamble, as nothing is free to produce and there is no guarantee they’ll make their money back. This is a small price to pay for those determined enough to try to get into the industry, but if it pays off there are many, many opportunities to become successful.
Craig: Thank you for watching our movie.