Final Cut

Evaluation Part 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We the project by creating our blogger sites which we used throughout to store our work, research, planning and anything else to do with the project on. Blogger is very useful and easy to use. Best of all as its online it can be accessed form anywhere so i can work on it at home and in school which makes life easy. It is simple to add both images and videos onto blogger along with text and arrange their sizes and positions so it looks good. There is also a way to follow other peoples blogs so you could see what they had done and be alerted to any updates they have made to their blogs. This made it easy to check when our teacher put new information on the blog and easy to follow my partners blog and see what updates i was making or vice versa. At the start of the project we also began making podcasts each week; recording what we had done that week and then puttin it onto the blog. This did not last long however, as we gave up on them after 3 weeks because too much time was wasted getting a good podcast done. To record these podcasts we used one of our phones which had a good quality sound recorder and had bluetooth making it very simple to load onto the mac and blogger.





When researching and evaluating our production we used both camcorder and camera to save shots which we could use on our blog as cast, props and location images. We also used certain stills from our trailer for our poster and frontcover.



In the actual construction stages we used two different programs to edit and refine our trailer to the best of our abilities. We started off loading our footage onto iMovie which we were both experienced with through our AS work last year. We used this program to do the simple editing and selecting the shots we wanted to use but that was about it. After that we put what we had done onto Final Cut Express 4 (this was easy to do) which had alot more controls and ways to enhance and improve our trailer it was however more complicated to use. We did a short morning course on final cut basics at the bradford film festival and we also recieved help from our media technician john. We added the music we intended to use in the trailer onto final cut and found it extremely good to work with once we new what we were doing. For example we found a way to low the volume of the music at certain parts which was useful as then you could let the audience hear things in the background or not depending on the circumstance. This was very easy to do.





Below is a video showing us working on some of the various software we used through our A2 production.

Evaluation Part 3

What have we learned from our audience feedback?

We have been told that we have got some good shots so far in our film. We had a shot in which we do a panning shot at the bottom of a surrounding cliff in which it ends with a quick cut to a puddle of water, but from the feedback our media teacher gave us we found that if we zoomed into the cliff face at the end of the shot then zoom out of the puddle it would look better. We also learnt that our shots were slightly too long and we would need to edit them to make the trailer more effective. Another issue we had to address was the lighting. i went up to the moors to test out the different types of lighting we would need to film at night. first of all we found that the moonlight was nowhere near enough because you couldn't see even a few feet in-front of you. the second lighting we tested was a torch, we found that the torch light focuses to brightly on one spot and so we couldn't use it.

As we have decided to switch to doing a trailer quite later on, we are no longer using most of the footage we took for the short film so the first paragraph is no longer relevant. I thought i would leave it in anyway as it may be worth some marks.

Some critical feedback we have recieved from our teacher is the addition of a voice over to the trailer, we intend to get this done this week commencing (monday the 26th). Some positive feedback we have recieved from our peers is how well we have intercut various scenes, we were pleased to hear this as some of the inter cutting were done as changes towards the end of the creation of the trailer.

Below is a video from a couple of our peers giving us some audience feedback for our trailer on camera.



In answer to the specific feedback mentioned by Toby and Theo in the video, some of the things they mentioned we were unable to do better. For example we could not afford to hire an expert to do the voice over for the trailer so I had to do it my self. As well as this we attempted a couple of other methods for the final scene with the knife slashing down but the results were not very good so we decided to go for the one in the trailer. If we had more resources or financial backing then we could have spent more to try and get a more a realistic noise for the knife slash at the end. Finally, about Theo's comments on the audio, we were restricted through copyright laws so we struggled to find acceptable music we could use and although we thought about making our own we did not think it would be very good.

There was also some positive feedback in the video about a couple of things like the grey scaling effect we used at the start and our peers also picked out how we had related our trailer to some codes and conventions we had seen in other horror films with them specifically mentioning Halloween and Dead Man's Shoes which were two films that we did look at.

Evaluation Part 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I feel that the combination of my two ancillary texts ( A Poster and A Front Cover) are very effective in terms of marketing our film. The target audience is 15 - 30 years old male horror fans.

Poster


This is my poster and I feel it is effective in what it's ment to do. It will catch the attention of passers by with the powerful looking silouetted figures standing out in the centre of the poster. The way the figures are siloutted denotes that there is a hidden meaning and creates a form of narative enigma in a picture.

At the top of the poster i have put reviews from "The Sun" and "Empire" The Sun frequently does reviews for new films which I why I chose it, and Empire is a prominent, well known film magazine so I decided to it for my second review.

Underneath the review is the Title of our film "A Dark History" which I put in a very large and slightly sans-serif font commonly used in horror films. I did this to make it stand out so people would recognise that its the name of the film. Underneath that is my tagline "Sometimes the past won't stay buried" This is in the same style of font as the main title and connotes that something comes back from the past in the film, it is ment to intrigue people and make them want to find out what come back from the past.

At the bottom of the page I put all the common codes and convention i have seen in my poster research such as the billing block with the font being larger for the names and smaller for the jobs my production logo and web address and its release date. You can access my poster research from this link http://snowden-alexa2.blogspot.com/2009/10/teaser-posters.html One thing which i didn't see on all the poster i looked at but decided to add anyway was the rating for the film as i thought it was useful to include it.


Magazine Front Cover


This is my magazine front cover, We decided to name our magazine "End Credits" as from our research most film magazines seemed to have some relation to films e.g. Total Film. Some common conventions of film magazines I saw and used in our own magazine included having the main picture infront of the name of the magazine obscuring some of the letters, a tagline explaining the focus of the magazine, the issue number, bar code and price tag. I included all of these things in our Front Cover.

One area where we developed or slightly changed the common convention is in our main picture of the dark figure. In most magazines the face of one of the characters is seen but in our the whole person is blacked out which instead. I felt this looked good and created a sense of suspense as to who the masked person will be in the film.

Alot of the text I used on the front cover is in red connoting blood and gore giving people an idea of what sort of film genre the magazine focuses on. This is reinforced by the tag line under the title "Your guide to the UK horror underground"

I think overall the front cover is really effective as a promotional product for our film. This link below takes you to my research into magazine front covers.

Link to Front Cover Research


Below is a short video in which Ben and I talk through how the combination of our main product and ancillary texts work and how effective it is.

Evaluation Part 1

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

Our media product although not fully finished is intended to develop forms and conventions of real media products. We will be sticking to things which we have learnt from our research into the horror genre. Typically in horror film trailers the soundtrack either starts off slowly with long drawn out sounds, to slowly build up to the action, or it immediately comes into action with a impacting sounds to grab the audiences attention straight away. We have not completed a soundtrack yet but we are going to use one of the two types.

The influential film we looked at was Dead Man's Shoes and we intend to use and develop the codes and conventions we saw in the film. The Killer in the film who strangely could be described as the protagonist rather than the antagonist as he has a could reason to kill the men he kills and they seem to be nasty people anyway wears a gas mask when killing. This looks both scary and strange creating something of a narative enigma. We will adapt this in our trailer so the killer has a similar sort of mask covering his face which looks both scary and creates a narative enigma as to who the killer is. Unlike in Dead Man's Shoes we will not openly reveal the killer like they do through the film so as to get our audience guessing as to who the killer is. We also looked at Halloween and we have decided to use a similar weapon as to which is used in Halloween a large kitchen knife. This is quite a common convention in horror/slasher films, in a few we have watched a large knife of some kind is used for at least some of the killings. The link below will take you to our cast and props post where you can see the mask/hoody the killer will wear and the knife he will use for the killings. http://snowden-alexa2.blogspot.com/2010/02/mise-en-scene-props-and-casting.html

One area in which we will challenging forms and conventions of real media products is the cast. It is a common occurence in horror and slasher films to include a final girl who outlasts all the other victims of the killer and survives it is also common to have some of the victims as dumb blondes who are busty, sexually active die fast. We were unable to get any girls to act in our film as they had busy schedules so we had to choose not to include them. Although this challenges common codes seen in most horror films there are a few which don't follow the code such as Dead Man's Shoes. We understand that without having any attractive blondes in our film we may reduce the audience intrested in it as alot of male teenagers may not think the film is or will be good if it doesn't have scenes of a sexual nature.

Ancillary Text 2 (Front Cover) Final

Ancillary Text 2 (Front Cover) Research and Ideas

The Front Cover above was our initial front cover, but after feedback on it from both students and our teacher we decided to scrap this version and start afresh as their were so many things wrong with it. We had got a vital piece of our research wrong in that one of the posters we looked at we mistook the background to be block colour but in fact it was the sky and the ground. Also the red circle didn't look very good and the colours were a bit bland.

This next poster (above) was our second attempt and when we got feedback this time we had a lot more positive responses all round, however, there were still a few things pointed out especially by another group in our class who had had to make a few changes to their own poster. From their feedback we decided to make a few more changes to our poster. The main thing they said was that we needed to include some more pictures. So we set about making these changes to create our final front cover which you can access via the link below. http://snowden-alexa2.blogspot.com/2010/03/ancillary-text-2-front-cover-final.html

 

Ancillary Text 1 (Poster) Final

Mise en Scene, Props and Casting

CAST

Above is me, Director, Editor, Screenplay Writer and Actor along with Ben Garvey shown below.

  











      





Above is Ben my media partner who i also worked with last year for my AS coursework. Ben and I both feature in our film if one of us is acting the other will be behind the camera filming. Last year we had our film screened at the Bradford film festival and we aim to do the same again this year.

Above is Tom Hunter who plays one of the main characters. We chose Tom to be in our film because he is 18 around the age of the target audience for our film so therefore the audience can relate to him. It was useful to have Tom as and actor because he finished collage at midday on most days so he was always available to film, he also has a car so he helped get us to our filming locations at times.

Above is Theo Wightman, he is in our media class and is also making a horror film teaser trailer. He is also 18 which like Tom is the perfect age to reach out to our target audience, Theo also studies Drama so we hoped he would have some good acting skills. We were not disappointed.

PROPS

We wanted to use a typical movie style kitchen knife as it follows the conventions of a real media product. The knife helps people to easily identify what genre (horror) the trailer is. The main influence in the using of this knife was Halloween which made it iconic to the horror industry.

This is the black hoodie/mask we choose for the murderer to use in our film. There are two main reasons why we used this hoodie. The first reason is because it was black and this is very traditionally used in horror films. The second point is because it zips fully so hides the identity of the killer creating a narrative enigma. We wanted a hoodie that covers the face because in our horror research we watched a film called Dead Man's Shoes by Shane Meadows in which a mask is used by the killer near the start of the film and it made him look wierd and menacing.

Target Audience & (Notional) BBFC Classification

Age
The age rating in our film is a 15. We chose this because later on in our film it will become gorier and there would be some strong language. Under the BBFC ratings its says that a film with strong language and scenes of a moderate violence should be rated at a 15. Also the actors in the film are within the age range, the main characters are 17 and 18 years old so it helps appeal to an audience of 15-24.

Ethnicity
In our trailer the characters are caucasion as this tends to be typical of the horror genre, However we have not specifically just chosen to have caucasion actors it's also due to the fact that we couldn't get the actors. If we could get actors of different ethnicity we would as it would help to widen the appeal of the trailer.

Gender
Generally a common convention of horror films is to have a female as the protagonist who comes through the evil and ends up victorious .However we are challenging this convention a bit as did the film Dead Man's Shoes. Their is a risk that we could decrease our potential as we do not have a final girl in our trailer but it was also partially due to the lack of choice in actors and actresses that we decided to not include a final girl, the girls in our group were busy so much that it was too hard to find a day which suited them.

Economic groupings
I think our film will appeal will appeal to upper middle class (C1) and lower middle class (C2) and working class (DE) groupings because horror films are not usually aimed at upper class, they normally watch period drama or films of a higher intellectual level.

Nationality/Region
Our teaser trailer will appeal to an English audience because the actors and settings are English. Horror movies usually have a heavy American influence and are generally high budget if they do. The lower budget British horrors will appeal to a more niche audience primarily because they don't have any American actors. Also on a regioal scale our trailer will appeal to a yorkshire audience as it features a famous yorkshire landmark, the Cow and Calf.

Fans of
Fans of our trailer will probably also be fans of films like Halloween because the well known horrors were a big influence on the making of our trailer, we studied their shots as they have obviously been very successful in hope that incorporating their camera techniques will help us to get a better finished product on our horror film. Also fans of a britsh film which incorporates scary elements such as Dead Man's Shoes by shane meadows, the film isn't a horror film but has some very scary scenes and we have tried to use some of its ideas and camera shots. Also another group of fans who may enjoy our trailer would be fans who enjoy movies with a twist and riddle. We didnt want our idea to be straight forward, we liked the thought of the audience guessing through as it will keep them more interested, again links can be made towards Dead Man's Shoes as it was the inspiration behind a twist ending.

Sexuality
Our trailer has hetrosexual actors as this seems to be more typical of the horror genre, The trailer is prodominantley male based but we have considered for example adding female characters or homosexual characters in order to widen the appeal our trailer has but the lack of avilability of actors and actresses makes this aspect difficult.

Phychographic profile
Someone who i think would enjoy our trailer would be someone who likes gritty realism film such as Sweet Sixteen. I want to keep the trailer as real as possible and stray away from more american style big budget films with a hollywood feel. The fact that we have an extremely low budget works to our advantage in this area.

Teaser Trailer Definition

A teaser trailer, or teaser is a short trailer used to advertise an upcoming movie, game or television series.
Teasers, unlike typical theatrical trailers, are usually very short in length (between 30–60 seconds) and usually contain little, if any, actual footage from the film. Sometimes, it is merely a truncated version of a theatrical trailer. They are usually released long in advance of the film they advertise. One of the reasons for the name "teaser" is because they are shown usually a long time (one or one and a half years) before the movie comes out, so as to "tease" the audience.

Teasers are also commonly used in advertising. (source, Wikepedia, Teaser trailer)

Codes and Conventions (Trailers)

Wolfman 

Starts with a couple of seconds of eerie music.

Quick cut to a man and a sudden loud biting sound.

Shot of a man running a claw comes into shot, dripping with blood.

Low tone voice over.

Universal world image turns to a full moon.

Fades to black between each shot.

Quick Cuts.

Title appears in the moonlight.

Then a final scene where the Woldman turns and see's its prey.

Halloween 2

Boom sound as title appears.

Long sounds.

Semiconscious half drowned out sound.

Music builds in intensity.

Flashes to black with a bang.

Thunder sound (echo).

Black and white camera shot is used to show flashbacks.

The Edge of Darkness

Starts with a phone call.

Daughters voiceover through answer phone.

Shots of dad doing daily things.

Fade out to a title screen with text.

Then fade into whiteish/blury image of father with young daughter.

Fade back to present shot of father meeting daughter.

Fade to black as car pulls in and eerie music played for a sec.

Quick flashs of a shot fire, father and a shooter.

Shot of father holding dead daughter.

Lots of fades/cuts to black after the death.

Lots of fast cuts aswell.

Babysitter Wanted

Long slow choir sound to begin with

Fades from black

Slow start

Magazine review comments in-between cuts

Dark scenery used

Sound of broken phone line

Music tempo builds

Finishes with scream

Awards and nominations dominate the screen

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Starts with 4 medium length shots of an abandoned area/street.

Can hear a person panting (from running)

Then he comes into shot being chased by 4 cars.

You see him chased into a house.

One of the chasers yells abuse at home and calls him Kruger.

They torch the house and you see him starting to burn.

Then cuts to black and the directors name appears in blood.

Cuts between 4 or 5 different shots of a girl talking, snaps to

black inbetween each shot with a thud.

Cuts to black with a thud between almost every shot.

Slow zoom onto a sign "Elm st"

Cuts to black near end, says name of film in blood then

cuts to one last shot scary shot.

Then finally cuts to the release date in blood.

The Legion

Starts with a shot of the sun rising.

Voice over from a young woman.

Shots in a bar, gentle calm music played and an old woman comes in.

Suddenly screaches and bites a mans throat out.

Man behind the bar gets a shotgun out and shoots her.

Cuts to a black screen with the production company on.

Silouetted shot of an angel, with a male voice over.

Shot of street lights going out one by one.

All the shots get darker and sudden noises to make you jump.

Flashes illuminating lots of angels come to kill.

Lots of fast cuts with a song rising to a crescendo.

Cuts out suddenly and snaps to a two shot of a girl asking if there safe.

He says no.

Common Conventions/ Summary

After analysing a few various film trailers (mainly focusing on those of the horror genre) i have noticed a few common features in most of them. First of all, sound is used in every trailer in various forms. In those of the horror genre music is used to create suspense and and keep the audience glued to the screen. A voice over is frequently used in horror trailers, this is to create ancourage and to get viewers heart rates up. Generally the horror films seem to start with a quick pace before slowing down and then speeding up once more towards the end of the trailer. However, ina couple of the horror trailers there is a slow start which then builds up to a fast paced climax. Both of these work well and do a good job in creating a scary and thrilling film trailer. Titles are also used in some of the trailers to either explain something to the audience or promote the film with comments on the film or the realease date.

Front Cover Analysis

These film magazine front covers all have things in common. For example all the covers have two main things standing out, the title of the magazine (EMPIRE and TOTAL FILM) and one main picture which relates to the main article in the magazine.

The main picture gives the reader an idea of what a section of the magazine is about e.g. if it's got the Joker on the cover then there's likely to be a large review of the new Batman film "The Dark Knight" inside. The Main picture also tends to be infront of the masthead therefore blocking out one or two of the letters in word. Although on one of the front covers (an Empire cover with Harry Potter) this is not the case and the main image is behind the masthead. The font and colour used for the title links to the main picture as does the background e.g. for the front cover of the Total Film Magazine with the New Moon article the text is sort of glowing like a moon and the background of woodland at night time reflects the genre of the film. For the articles with Megan Fox on the front cover the backgrounds are white possibly implying she is pure. You could say that each issue follows a kind of house style which depends on what the main focus of the magazine is on.

Some things to be aware of when creating our own front cover is how there should be none or minimal text obscuring the main picture and generally the text is kept to the sides, the top or the bottom. The price and bar code are shown on the front page of each magazine. It seems more common for the main image to be infront of the masthead so i think we will do it that was on our front cover.

Production Schedule

We intend to do most of our filming on the 4th of Febuary. We have two houses available to use and will use one as Tom's home, where some of the creepy things happen and the other for the killing house where the poker and killings happen. We intend to do get all the shots done on the 4th.

After looking at what weve got we have decided to do another filming session next thursday (the 11th of Febuary) This is to retake a couple of shots were not happy with and take a few new ones of some of the actually killings.

These two images are our storyboard which we brought with us when filming and used to check we had done each shot by ticking off the shot on the storyboard once we had done it.

Revised Idea

We were not happy with our first idea and decided we would much rather do a Trailer rather than a short film.

New Idea
Title:

Teaser Trailer
Genre: Horror

Characters: Tom, Theo, Jack, Ben, Joe, Alex

Starts with a flash back from 1 year earlier when two mates are out on the moors, but Tom is only their for revenge as Theo stole his girl and hes taken Theo onto the moor to kill him. Tom kills Theo and 1 year on hes still having nightmares about it.
Freaky things start happening to Tom on the aniversary of Theo's death. As Tom gets more and more creeped out throughout the day he is relieved when he meets up with 3 mates for their poker night.
The killer has planned it all and intends for none of them to leave the house alive. After the friends have had quite a lot to drink and played some poker, the killer first picks off two of Tom's friends when they go for more booze and to the toilet respectively.

Tom and Joe the two remaining realise what is going on but there is no way out of the house.

Theo's older brother is the killer and having figured out what he thinks happened on the night of his brothers death he is out for revenge. He toys with Tom and his mates and then kills the mates so only Tom and Theo's brother remain.

Pod Casts

Pod Cast 1

Pod Cast 2

Research

Pocket Essentials Film: Slasher Movies
Author: Mark Whitehead

According to the book:
1) Top 3 slasher movies of all time: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th
2) Top 9 Tips for a slasher film:

1. Phone doesn't work
2. Car doesn't start
3. Snapping twigs
4. Standing next to windows, either fall through, get puled through or something thrown through
5. Asking stupid questions
6. Vulnerable when naked especially bathrooms, on toilet, in shower
7. Saying "I'l be right back"
8. sex/drugs/music, allow someone to sneak up on you and then death
9. Avoid scary places on significant dates e.g. basements on Halloween

Another book I looked at was The Legacy of Blood

From this i learnt that the slasher genre was born from John Carpenters Halloween which overuses one shot in particular - the first-person-point-of-view-shot which features so heavily in all it's imitators as well. Jim Harper writes that one critic described Halloween as the shower scene from Psycho stretched out for an hour and a half. Mainly because of the overuse of the shot.





The Book also mentions the commoness for horror film to be of a relatively low budget which is one of the reasons we chose to do a horror trailer as we did not have any money to spend on it. Another common convention of horror films is for their to be a final girl.

Final Girl: Brunette, Intelligent, strong willed and a virgin.

The girls who die: Slutty, blonde haired, big breasts and stupid.

Many horror films such as Halloween, Scream and Nightmare on Elm Street use a final girl, and it has become a common a factor in Slasher films.

However as part of our research of the horror genre we watched a few horror films.
One of the most inspirational films we watched was Dead Mans Shoes.

This involved an ex army member murdering a group of men who abused his little brother who was a simpleton while he was away in the army. For the killings he wore a gas mask making him look extremely menacing. We tried to use this in our film and although we did not have a gas mask available to use we had a hoody which fully zipped up over the face creating the desired effect. There is a picture of the hoody earlier in my blog, the link below takes you to the page.
http://snowden-alexa2.blogspot.com/2010/02/mise-en-scene-props-and-casting.html

We also noticed in this film that a final girl was not used and we decided to adopt this into our film as we really enjoyed Dead Man's Shoes and wanted to make a trailer for a film similar to it. This was useful as it was harder to get hold of the girls to act as they had alot going on.

Codes and Conventions (Short Films)

Short Film 1: Sebastians Voodoo
Directed by Joaquin Baldwin (2008)

• Starts with footsteps, and a shot of a dark room, quite creepy. 
• Close up of a voodoo doll waking up, can tell by the expression on his face and the music which builds suspence that something is wrong. 
• Then a change in music, to a scary drum beat as the camera pans out to reveals there are lots of voodoo dolls all waiting to be killed. 
• You can see the person's hands as he kills the first voodoo doll, high angle shot of the doll showing it is going to die. 
• The person leaves the room, and one voodoo doll helps another to escape. 
• Depth of Field type Shot used where you can see the first voodoo doll trying to think of a way to save the voodoo doll that helped it in the foreground and the human about to kill the second doll in the background.
• As the voodoo doll stabs himself the music quikens and the camera cuts between the two voodoo dolls with one stabbing its self and the other other about to be stabbed. 
• Match on Action? as the first doll stabs its self the human reacts to the injury? 
• Quick cuts between one shot of the person bringing the needle closer to the voodoo's heart and another of the first voodoo building up the courage to stab himself in the heart to save his friend. 
• Finally a panning shot showing all the voodoo dolls free and finishing on the voodoo doll which died to save them. The music and lighting make the atomasphere scary and tense.
  

Short Film 2:  Reach
Directed by Luke Randall (2009)

• Establishing shot of city/town then pans down to a window and there is a second establishing shot of a room in which everything takes place. 
• Happy tune at first bt then fades away to the sound of heavy foot steps. 
• Pair of hands put together a little robot which appears not to work. 
• Then match on action? as a horn beeps the hands show aknoledgement and the person leaves. 
• The robot does actually work and the camera zooms in on it as it takes in its surroundings, song played gradually builds happyness. 
• Point of view shot ( through the robots eye). Very happy and then POV shot out of the window and the tune stop and the robot zoomz in - connotes it wanting to go outside to the real world. 
• Tries to get outside but cannot , camera zooms out to show that the length of his wire prevents him. 
• Happy tune builds up as he makes a final attempt to break away from the cable and reach the window, pauses momenterally as the cable momenterally stops him but then builds to a climax as he gets closer to the window and it cuts between POV shots and panning shots of him running, his arms are reached forward in anticipation then its sight fades out as do the music as it runs out of power.
  

Short Film 3: Strangers
Directed by Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv (2004)

• Starts with the sounds of a train approaching and long shot of an entrance/exit on to the station platform, quite dark except for the entrance. 
• Train comes into the shot from one tunnel and then leaves out the otherside without the camera moving once. Signifying that the film will be set on the train. 
• Shot of man stepping onto the train, walking towards the camera then it follows him, signifying that he is the main protagonist.
• Sits near an asian man, seems to be tension between them, they keep looking at each other. 
• Heavy music comes in and a shot down the train showing a group of rough looking males coming down the train. 
• They crowd around the two men and spray a swazsticker onto the asians paper. glimpses of a swazsticker tatoo on one of their heads, connotes that they are probably nazi supporters. 
• Close up shots of the nazi's their expressions show disgust and anger, close up of the asian show he is worried. 
• The tension is now way bigger than it was, cuts to shot of the train pulling into a platform, the camera pans the train to show the group of men through the window. 
• People start to get off the train, the protagonists phone rings making the situation awkward as he tries to find his phone. Shots of all the nazis looking at him in anger. 
• Sudden beat is played as the two men jump up and run down the train away from the nazi's and jump off the train train just before the doors close, shot of the nazis looking angry through the train windows. The two men cheer at the nazis and then nod to each other and walk away.
  

Short Film 4: The Black Hole
Directed by Phil Sampson and Olly Williams

• Camera zooms in to a close up shot of a tied looking man, can tell he is an office work by his shirt and tie and surroundings. 
• Digetic noises coming from printer (beeping sounds). Strange humming noise coming from black hole, cup disappears into it and then he can put his hand through it as well. 
• Look of confusion on his face. His eyes light up when he looks up and sees the vending machine, and he walks away from the camera to the vending machine. 
• When he looks at a door (probably the bosses) a look of determination is shown on his face and he uses the black hold to unlock the door. digetic sound of door handle being used, light flickers on, signifying danger?.
• Uses the sheet to rob money from the safe. quick cuts between he money he is taking, his expression and him taking more money, the constant hum can be heard, cuts get faster signifying he is getting greedy. 
• Then he goes all the way through the black hole to get the money at the back and he can't get out.
• Camera jumps further away from the safe and you can hear him tapping from the inside trying to get out.
  

Short Film 5: Forna: Watched from Leeds met short film compilation DVD

• Starts with a shot of the main protagonists
• various shot types used; two shots, mid shots, and close ups showing facial expressions and converse between the characters.
• Film aimed at an older audience, very strange narrative about penis's springing out the ground. difficult to see the preferred reading.
• Dis equilibrium, an attempt is made to resolve it but it fails and the film ends with the character in an even worse situation than at the start.

Short Film 6: Cherries: Watched from Leeds met short film compilation DVD

• Main shot of the protagonist at the start.
• Urban setting with a shabby looking school in a rough looking area.
• Mixed race school, various ethnicity's, tension between some boys, seems to be high level of tension between the protagonist and the antagonist who are different skin colours.
• lots of mid shots and long shots of groups of boys and also lots of close ups showing expressions especially as the storyline is revealed to the actors.
• Seems to be quite a high budget film, with military involved in some scenes and a large amount of actors used.
• Strange twist, in that the kids are forced into military training programmes which scares a lot of them, one boy runs away.
• Genre seems to be social realism

Short Film 7: Mr. Eryams: Watched from Fangoria Blood Drive short film DVD

• Low budget production - set in a small shabby house, poor acting, only 2 characters.
• Woman looks like a bit of a scream queen - (blonde hair, lots of skin on display and seems to be a bit of a slapper.)
• Genre appears to be thriller but the twist makes it seem more horror orientated, lots of long takes which is quite unusual for a horror film.
• poor lighting and not many bright colours reinforces the feeling its a horror film.
• Quite gory scenes and quite scary sound effects/music used also suggesting it is typically a horror film, this, the strong language and the shots of the woman lying naked and dead on the bed suggets the target audience for the film is adults.

Short Film 8: Lovefield

• Starts with an establishing shot of a large wheat field
• The camera pans down the screen and creepy, tension building muic is played.
• Camera pans to a shot of a swinging sign making an eerie creaking noise
• Shot of a crow on top of the sign and then cuts to a close up of the crow as it caws
• Conventions of a typical horror genre film
• Camera returns to a panning shot of the wheat field, and the music rises again building a higherlevel of tension
• A beeping sound gradually gets louder as the camera moves through the wheat field and then comes to rest on an open mobile phone which is the source of the beeping
• The camera then gradually zooms out bringing a bag of money into the shot and then a woman making a screeching crying noise can be heard.
• Camera rest of a shot of the woman foot which is squeming about and connotes she is in pain
• The sound of the woman screeching and her foot shaking stop simultaneosly which connotes that she has died, then a knife is rammed into the ground
• Quick cut to a shot of the crow squaking and then cuts back to a shot of a mans feet and then pans up is body. The music which had faded away comes back very suddenly as soon as the knife is slamme dinto the ground.
• The pace of the music quickens as the man runs out of the wheat field and onto the road to a parked car. The man appears worried and the camera cuts between shots of him and of the crow squaking.
• The man opens the boot which is filmed from inside the boot
• Music tension builds as the man looks through the boot in a hurry
• The crow stops squaking casing the man to look up, it has flown to his car and landed on the roof
• shot of the womans uncovered legs in the foreground with the man running to her with a pink blanket
• The balnket is for the new born baby, the woman had been giving birth, gentle music played and camera pan out to reveal the area wasnt quite as scary as it seemed
• Very clever twist at the end and good switch from seeming to be a horror film into a happy storyline

Short Film 9: Offside

• Starts with a shot of a danger sign
• Digetic soundheard froma radio help by two soldiers
• Camera pans along the fence to reveal the two soldiers walking down a track
• Radio is a commentry off a world cup final involving brazil and Italy, then two rebel soldiers appear on the other side of the fence, they all seem to be interested in the match so they don't shoot each other
• Lots of quick cuts between the two pairs of men, they look really upset when the italians just miss
• the radio loses signal and crackles out, then one of the italians nudges it with his foot, can tell there is tension between the four men, they all want italy to win
• Then the brazilans score and one of the men fires a shot in anger, which then cause them to shoot each other until tey are all dead
• After there all dead the radio anounces that the goal was offside, so they all died for nothing.
• Quite a good short film, good props and clever twist

Short Film 10: Catch

• Starts with a establishing shot of of a field near a housing estate, and three guys are playing catch with a baseball
• soft gentle music played, digetic noise of the ball being caught in a baseball glove, cuts to close up of the baseball glove catching the ball
• Music fades away a bit as the three guys start talking to each other, carrying on catching the ball as they do
• One is distracted from catching the ball while they talk and it hits him in the chest
• He shouts at the guy who threw it
• shot of the guy who was hit throwing it back and then there is a quick cut between the guy who hit him with the ball catching it and the guy who got hit, and it is obvious he is going to get hit again
• This time it hits him in the face and he gets angry
• Lots of quick cuts between the 3 guys, raised tones and angry facial expression connote they are getting angry with one another
• One guy ran over by his father at the end, not a very good film, quite low budget and poor acting
  

Production Schedule

We are planning to film our short film in November over a weekend on the mooors. The dates are the 21st and 22nd of November.

Genre Research and Intertextual links