Resume.

The opening begins with a 360 degree shot of a weary looking park, starting from the statue, and ending at there however as it comes back round to the statue the ghost antagonist appears and just stays still whilst stood on it. Next it cuts to a low angle shot of a young female kneeled down by a grave, looking quite upset and thoughtful. It cuts to a medium wide shot showing the women still kneeled down, and then an wide shot from behind the bench, as the ghost appears on the bench, turning it into an over the shoulder shot. Then it cuts back to the wide shot, but showing the ghost still sat on the bench watching the young female by the grave. Next it becomes a new scene in which the female protagonist is walking through the exchange square, then a sudden of voices appear saying her name ‘ Zianab’. The female turns and spots the ghost reflection in a nearby window view. The voices carry on for a few seconds to freak the protagonist out and start to scare her. Another cut shows a long shot of the protagonist walking, with the ghost in clear view to the audience following very closely behind her. The ghost reaches out and places her hand onto the protagonist shoulder. The sounds of someone whispering Zianabs name, starts again getting louder as the protagonist turns round and see’s that no ‘one is behind her, and nothing is on her shoulder.
It then cuts to a long shot of the ghost stood staring into a space, with a still face. A tram cuts through the shot of the ghost, then a shot of the female protagonist at the tram station. These scenes all cut through each other and happen at a fast pace.
A shaky camera shot is used as it follows the female down a dark allays. It shows her in different clothes, which shows the audience that this is a different day. It fades to black, and then shows the protagonist on lie on the floor. A fade to black and then a close up of a picture frame showing the ghost and the protagonist together, which shows the relationship between them. The voice over starts up again and the repetition of the females name ‘Zianab begins getting louder and more often. The protagonist looks distressed as she wakes up to the voices. A cut to a close up of the picture frame again, with one of the faces being de-faced. The protagonist wakes up and gets out of bed all distressed and confused to what’s going on.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a number of techniques that defined the genre and grabbed the audience's attention. Firstly the protagonist is a young, female (late teens). We chose her to be the protagonist because not only are young females often used in thrillers but also to do with the fact that she is of a similar age as our target audience (15-24). We feel that by having a character of that age group the audience will be able to relate to the character a lot more and would represent how most audience members would act if they were in that situation. Other techniques we have used to define the genre and grab the audience's attention are the following:

• Sound- the music, voiceover and sound effects we have chosen create a tense atmosphere e.g. when Zainab goes to the graveyard to visit the grave of her best friend the ghost suddenly appears when the low, echo like sound effect is heard. As the ghost appears out of no where hopefully the audience will get a thrill from watching it and want to find out what happens next.


• Editing- During the editing we put some shots with/without the ghost so it looks like the ghost has disappeared. This creates a sense of mystery. Hopefully this get's the audience questioning, therefore they will watch the rest of the film to have those questions answered.


• Mise en scene- In terms of costume both characters (even the ghost) are wearing ordinary teenage clothing, again this is so our target audience can relate to it. In terms of locations we chose ones which are found in most thrillers e.g. graveyard, bedroom, ally, park etc. This again is something that the target audience will be able to relate to as these type of locations are used in most thrillers and are something which the audience will be expecting.

How does you media product represent particular social groups?

The opening of our film shows a young female adult, who plays the main protagonist in our film. The opening shows her kneeled down by a gravestone, looking quite upset. The whole film opening follows her, with different camera movements to create the effect that she is being followed by her best friend her died a few weeks early, however the audience are unaware of this at the time. We decided to use a female character in her late teens as we though that is the time when people socialize and like to go out with friends, so by loosing a friend around that age would have a greater effect on the protagonist. We have used female characters as we think they are used as a stereotype in horror/thriller films. In films such as ‘Silence of the lambs, Scream and The eye, all the main protagonists in these films are female, who are the ones that get chased, are haunted and are the ones the antagonist are after.

In these thriller films, a male character is usually portrayed as the antagonist, however we have gone against this stereotype and decided to use a female ghost as our antagonist. Our film doesn’t exactly portray a particular group of people; it just looks into dept. at friendship, and the whole ‘friends forever thought’ as our two characters have been friends for nearly the whole of their life, and now one has died, yet they carry on following and trying to make contact with our protagonist which scares her and isn’t always in a nice way. Our film shows a negative representation of ‘ghosts’ as the ghost in our film is set out to contact our protagonist but in a evil way, and wants to scare her and make her suffer.

We have used another female character in her late teens as our ghost as she is then the same age as the protagonist and show the connection between the two. We looked at different ghosts from films, and thought the young girl ghost from ‘The ring’ would be suitable to compare and make our Female ghost have a look of. With the dark colored hair coming down in front of the face to make it look quite creepy.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt from the progression from it to the full task?



Throughout the process of creating our film opening we used a variety of methods and techniques. Some of the skills that we applied and used while making our opening were skills that we had learnt previously in our preliminary task. An example of this is the following:

• 180° rule- One of the first skills that we learnt while filming our preliminary task was the 180° rule. This guideline ensures that any two characters or elements that are in the same scene always have the same right/left relationship to each other. It also establishes where the actor’s are in the scene for the audience’s benefit. However if the camera “crosses the line” it breaks the rule and therefore can make the two characters look as if there are on the same side. In terms of our film See through My Eyes we applied this rule when we were filming a close up on Zainab while she was in the cemetery visiting the grave of her best friend.

• Performance- The performance of the two main characters were at a decent standard especially when we used close ups on Zainab’s face because by her facial expressions we could see clearly what emotion she was feeling without needing to use dialogue. An example of this is towards the end of the opening where Zainab wakes up and can hear someone, a voice calling out her name. The close up highlights the scared and frightened expression on her face. Just like in our preliminary task we used the same acting skills that kept us focused throughout the filming process.

• Sound- In terms of sound we had to make sure that ambient sound, music and voiceover were at the appropriate volume and were clear just like our preliminary task. In preliminary task one of our strengths was that the conversations and other sound techniques were loud and clear enough. To have the same outcome we made sure when adding the voiceover and music we enhanced the volume while editing to help build up the tension of the film, as it is a thriller.

Extra knowledge and skills:

• As this was a thriller we learnt about what needed to in each scene to make it a successful thriller. We did this by selecting the most suitable locations e.g. the graveyard as we needed a grave to show the audience that one of the characters was dead.
• We learnt how to use a range of different shots correctly such as shot reverse shot, cut aways, tracking shots, over the shoulder shots, extreme close ups and medium shots.
• In terms of editing we learnt how to edit the shots and fit them togther as a sequence so the audience have a clear understanding of what is happening in the film. Therefore it will make sense to them.
  

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

We feel the type of media institution that would distribute our product would be mainly British production companies and broadcasters. This is because our thriller is obviously set in Britain and has been filmed in many locations that people would usually associate with Britain e.g. a local park, an ariel shot of Manchester’s City centre. Other reasons why we feel it would be distributed mainly by British production companies and broadcasters, like the BBC and Working Title are as follows:

· That there are very minimal special effects unlike the films distributed Hollywood where they use new pieces of technology more e.g. the camerawork in our opening there is shaky, only use special effects for the ghost etc.

· The budget is very low; we only spent money on some key props etc. · In terms of timing we obviously did not have as much time to film as it would take a Hollywood blockbuster. Although one of our inspirations an American film Brick also only had a short period of time to film, 20 days.

· There are a lot of British references e.g. Greater Manchester tramlines; a British audience could possibly understand them a lot more.
And obviously like other media instituations they would distribute our product while using a number of advertising methods such as:

• Buses- This is a form of transport that the public use everyday therefore people inparticular our target audience would clearly see our product advertised and would make them aware that our product is being shown.
  
• Billboards- Again the public will see the billboards when they are out travelling via car or on their way to town.
  
• Leaflets- This is a very easy way of advertising as leaflets can also be put into magazines as well through the publics front door.
  
• Newspapers and Magazines- By having posters and adverts put into our target audience's favourite magazine there will be a bigger chance of them actually going out and watching the film because they know more about it.
  
• Trailers online (viral)- Social networking e.g. facebook, youtube, myspace etc ensures that our target audience can view the trailer of our product while they are on these websites.
  

Production Treatment for Main Task

Production Treatment for main Task :
The members of our group are Zainab Khan, Shauni Higgins, Bethany Tilburn and Sinead Doherty. The name of our production company is Galaxy Films.

The Opening of a short film: The genre of our film is a thriller and the name of our opening is See Through My Eyes.

Duration: Approximately 2 minutes

Audience: The film opening itself is a thriller; most films of this genre are intended for young adults both male and female possibly because they enjoy the “thrill’ and the adrenaline they get from watching the film. Therefore we wanted to do the same and have a target audience aged 15-24 however it could also appeal to an audience above that age group. In terms of gender we feel that both genders would find this opening appealing, rather than one gender liking it more than the other. Some examples of these types of films are Brick and Silence of the Lambs which both within that age range.

Suggested Elements:

· Performance- (the ghost following the best friend in a town)

Costumes- (normal, teenage girl clothing for both characters, even the ghost this is used to trick the audience to believe that the ghost is a ordinary human being.

· Props- (photograph of the two protagonists shows the friendship between the girls before one of them died.

· Key Locations- (the graveyard where the live protagonist goes to visit the grave of the her best friend, the audience then knows she is dead.

Recording Days:

Number of days we intended to plan: 1 week- during this time we planned out what we wanted in each scene and what affects it would have on people.

Number of days we intended to film: 3 weeks approximately- during this we time we filmed all the compulsory and extra shots that we might need.

Number of days we intended to edit- 3 weeks approximately- During this time we edited the shots by putting them together in sequence , cutting and also extending them as well as adding sound effects and music.

Number of days we work on the blog: Throughout the whole production process, any time we filmed or edited it would go on the blog.

THRILLER MOVIES

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main audience for our media product is late teenagers 15 years of age and over, young adults and people who like thriller horror genre of films. As our film goes in to dep’t about death and the ‘afterlife’, and ghosts, we thought an age rating of 15 would be quite appropriate for our film. Previous films we have looked at and based our research around are films like Silence of the lambs, which had a rating of 18. However Silence of the lambs contains graphic scenes, which make it that age rating, compared to ours, which doesn’t have this. Our film is more of a mild horror thriller, which suits the age rating of 15, like films such as Hide and seek. Our film target gender audience could be aimed at females as our two main protagonists are female, and our film doesn’t have much male roles within it. However thriller films normally appeal to a mixture of gender audiences, therefore we have aimed our film to do the same. People who enjoy films with a twist, some mystery and those who just like watching thrillers would be the ideal audience for our film. People who also have an interest in TV shows such as Most Haunted and Ghost hunters would be one pacific target audience for our film, as it is based around ghosts. Our film is aimed more for a niche audience, people with similar interests.

Media Production work: Filming Process

Date: 03/03/2011.

This is our second day filming for our film opening assement in Media.
We went to Wythenshawe Park to try out and find different locations for our film opening. This is the first time we had been there and were quite impressed with it, and felt we could do a mixture of our filming there.
The park was huge, and had a scary feel to it which fitted it perfectly with our film genre as it is a thriller drama. We decided to film a 360 degree pan of the whole park showing the statue and an old looking house within it, which I think works well all placed together.
We have used this for our film opening as it shows interesting areas of the park, and is a good establishing shot for the opening. We went walking round the park looking for locations to film certain areas of our opening. We found little lakes and places that had little light, and a lot of tree’s which we thought would be perfect to create the right atmosphere for our film.
The down side of the trip to Wythenshawe park is that we couldn’t do any proper filming as our main protagonist, Zianab wasn’t in therefore all me, Sinead and Shauni could do was film parts to show Zianab, and plan what areas we will use to film what. We walked round the whole park to get a feel of it, filming different places to show Zianab when she was back in college, therefore she didn’t miss out on seeing the location. A good point about using Wythenshawe Park, is that it’s quite big and has lots of space and different places which we could film a mixture of scenes there, it is also a nice location, and shows we have tried to use locations to match our film genre’s.
The shots we did at this location were:

· . Establishing shot, for our opening, showing the main area of the park.

· . A variety of long shots to show the different areas in the park, and see what scenes we could film here.

· . Long shots, showing a long path which looked quite interesting and would work well within our film.

Overall we had a good day filming, and managed to think up multiple ideas for different scenes in our opening. We also were able to get a good look at the park, and try out our different ideas to see whether or not they worked well together.

Media Production Work: Filming Process

Date: 24/03/11

After starting to edit our opening of the film we realised that parts of the opening didn't look right and there was a few problems with the story line. So we decided to go back and do some more filming. We went to a location where we hadn't filmed before which was Southern Cemetery. We decided to add a completely different scene to the opening to make it link more with the rest of the story. We filmed Zainab visiting a grave of her friend Sinead. After we filmed there we then went back into Picadilly to redo a few of the shots done previously. The shots that we did were the following-

Close up - This shot was used whilst Zainab was looking at the grave of her friend. We used this shot as we thought it would be good to show the emotions and facial expressions on Zainabs face at this situation. We also did a close up when we went to our second location which was Picadilly, we used the close up shot when the ghost places her hand on Zainabs shoulder.

Over the shoulder- This shot was used whilst Zainab was again looking that the grave. We used this as we was looking over the ghosts shoulder to do the shot, we thought this would make the opening more scary which would be good as the genre we chose to do was a thriller.

Long shot - This shot was used in Picadilly where we filmed Zainab walking and the ghost following shortly behind. This shot was good as it gave the audience a shot of the location used.

These shots are just some examples of the ones we have used throughout the movie opening.

Shot List for Film opening

· Establishing shots- at the beginning of the opening we want to show a range of dark, gothic locations to obviously establish where it is. Some examples are Wythenshawe Park and Worsley Canal, however (we did not use Worsley Canal as it was difficult to travel there and the fact most members of our company did not know the area that well, therefore the location was quite unreliable and might not have been as good as it looks.) Hopefully this also starts to build up the tension and create an eerie, creepy atmosphere, when you firsts see the ghostly figure.

· Close ups- we want to use a number of close ups to show the facial expressions clearly, in particular on the main protagonist when she gets haunted by the ghost of her best friend. This will show the audience how scared the main protagonist is and how creepy the ghost looks while she is staring at the other protagonist. We hope that the audience becomes drawn in and feel scared them.

· Extreme close up- again we hope the extreme close up achieves the same objectives as the other close ups. This will be used when the ghost puts their hand on their the protagonist’s shoulder and disappears

· Medium shots- by using medium shots we would again see the facial expressions but also see the costumes so possibly we would know where, when what time it was set. The medium shots would also show the colours from the costumes that would also tell the audience more about the character. E.g. the ghost is wearing normal, everyday clothing. The black coat could connote death etc.

· Long shot- by using long shots we could show the audience all the action, which is taking place in the scene, in particular when the protagonist is unaware that the ghost is following them. This should create dramatic irony, as the audience knows that the protagonist is being followed, while the protagonist does not. Also allows them to see the location clearly.

· Two shots – By using two shots we can see both the ghost and the other protagonist clearly throughout the opening.

· Cut away- by using a cut away along with the shaky camerawork it will enhance the tension in each scene so the audiences have a much better understanding of what we are trying to achieve.

· Shot reverse shot- again will build up an atmosphere and also keep the pace of the opening up, which is essential in any thriller.

· Wide shots- this will be used when the protagonist is visiting the grave of the best friend that has passed away. Again this will allow the audience to both the ghost and the other protagonist clearly throughout the opening.

Ideas from "Brick" posters

Throughout the planning and preparation stages of the production work, we had many inspirations for our film opening. A lot of the inspiration came from a number of different films of the same genre, thrillers. Brick was just one of them; we were particularly inspired by the clips, music and the film's posters. The main poster showing the arm with the blood flowing in the water gave us the idea of possibly having one character die. However as we did more research we found other posters from the film Brick that included white silhouettes, we felt this connoted ghostly figures. Therefore, on our final idea we decided to have a ghost haunting the other protagonist.

Key prop: photograph in frame

Media Production work: Filming Process

Date: 08/03/11

This was our third day filming for our practical assessment in media. After two filming sessions we had already been to two very different locations. Today we decided to go to our third location, by having a variety of locations it will make our opening seem more interesting rather than just staying in one place. The location we wanted to film today was Manchester’s city centre. This was the largest out of all our locations; therefore this gave us more options of whereabouts we would like to film in town. After discussing all of the possibilities we finally decided to film at the top of Shudehill bus station. As we were quite high up this gave us the chance to do a number of shots and try out another shot which could be used for the beginning. The shots that we did were the following:

· Establishing shot- To establish where the film is filmed and set e.g. Shudehill Interchange, Manchester. This also shows where the protagonist is being followed throughout the opening.

· This was just one of the shots we did at this location. As well as doing different shots we also had to take pictures not just of the location but also of the two main characters as we use a photo of the characters in a much later shot. For example Close up of photoframe.

Overall this filming session allowed us not only to film some decent shots but also gave us the chance to take pictures that will be key props in our film opening.