Coursework - finished opening

Best friend:

Evaluation Q4 - Use of Technology

Evaluation Q3 - Skills development

For the first time I ever done something with camera, editing, and movies, so I think I have improved a lot in those area.

Before the coursework, I never know that Premiere or after effect exist. But media studies class taught me the basics of them before letting me explore each function in the program. Therefore, now, I can edit the whole opening and use the effect given in the program to adjust the colour scheme, lights, and audio.

This is what I've put together for my opening:

I know how to adjust the volume of the sound effect and sound track using keys and dragging it round

I learned how to fix the lighting in the film, by using the Brightness and Contrast from the video effects tab and adjust the brightness and/or the constrast

This is what I did on after affect:

I searched for an animation for my text and dragged it into the text I wanted to animate

Cinematography is also a new thing for me. Even before the coursework, we’ve done a one minute film, I didn’t have a chance to hold the camera. So, on the coursework, it was my first time holding the camera and directing it. Some of the angles are from what I remember from seeing from the film I have seen.

Codes and conventions weren’t the thing I understood the first time I heard them. However, throughout the Coursework, I managed to develop my understanding about it and be able to use some in the film opening.

Evaluation Q2 - How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as…

To identify my target audience:

I went to youguv profiles LITE to find more information about the type of audiences who like to watch horror thriller that centres on doll. I selected two profile from searching ‘the boy’ and ‘child’s play’. Each are horror thriller of dolls, similar to my opening film.

Both are horror thriller and mystery.

‘The boy’ is a movie about a women who have to take care a child of the couple in the big house. And the child she needs to take care turns out to be a doll, which she doesn’t like it and refuse follow the rules given by the old couple.

‘Child’s play’ is a movie about a toy named chucky that’s possessed by a murderer spirit and kills people.

These are the two types of people I got from searching:

Most people who see these kind of films are women, and are about 25-39 or 40-54 years old.

Their favourite movies are similar in terms of supernatural, thriller and mystery, however, the younger audiences seem to have more interest in horror supernatural with darker poster and more violence than the older audiences, which involve more mystery and humor.

After researching about the movies from each type of audiences, I learned that the younger audience like to be expose to more violence and murdering.  By comparing the child’s play (the movie I use to search up this profile) to my opening, I think that this might not be my target audience, despite the similarity of the sub-genre.

Reasons why they would like my film?

• Since my film has a doll as the main ghost character, which is what most women had one in their childhood, so they might be able to relate to the film.
• Secondly, the first character showed in the opening is a young girl, which they could relate to.

The older audience, however, have their favourite movies that are similar to my opening (except for ‘the legend of Tarzan’). The movies are more of mystery, and some are also watchable by children (Ghostbusters).

 Reasons why they would like my film?

• My opening introduces several mysteries around the girl character such as how did the doll get inside? Why is the girl alone?  Why didn’t she question about the existence of the doll?
• The narrative is not too hurried (most scenes are in the girl’s room) corresponding to most the audiences’ personality, which is patience.

How some element in the opening engage with the audience:

How it would be distributed:

Cinema: I don't think my film is set up to be put on the big screen where there are many people watching. I think the audience will get their best experience through watching alone in their own house dimming the light to nearly turning it off combine with silence. In addition, looking at the target audience, most of them are still working, so they might not have that much time to go to the cinema.

The disadvantage is that the movie has its show period; it cannot be on the cinema forever. And the way to get the movie to be on the cinema is that it have to be good enough for the distributor

Online: so if they don’t have much time to go to the cinema, they might have time to go online to watch some movies in their rare free time, which doesn’t required time to travel to the cinema and can also select where to watch the movie; with small group of people or even alone. This is also convenient for the audiences, since they can choose the time to watch and pause the movie whenever they want.

CDs/DVDs: distribute it to the retailers with some kind of promotion such as a small art cover of the movie. These are what my target audience of more than 20 years are familiar with more than internet, which just started to become popular since year 1999.

Distributor: or I could find a distributor to do the distribution of the movie for me. Which will make things easier in terms of finding target audience and the time to release the film, since they are already specialized in this field. However, I also need to make sure my film is quality, unique, and interesting enough to get their attention.

Deciding on a release date:

The release date should not be the same date as the big films from the well-known companies to increase the recognition chance. I first thought that it should be release on Halloween which is all about scary stuffs, but the film is not really about ghost (by what I mean is that it involve on more mystery). So, I chose to release the movie around September that doesn’t have much going on, such as traditional festival. This means that the consumer will have less choice and people which are not my target audience might decide to watch the film to kill time.

Evaluation Q1 - Conventions and Representations

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

NARRATIVE

The film opening starts with a girl character walking upstairs showing nothing at all. The walls are white, [colour of the floor] floor, like a typical inside of a new simple house, which is how the film start with: a normal day, like how ‘the boy’ film started. Everything in the film looks normal until the doll is introduced.

Enigma is created when the main character first see a mysterious doll lying at the corner of the stairs, which then change to various angle of the doll including close up and high shot. The song that suits the doll atmosphere come in after the sound of flowing water is heard. It's when the character starts to get pulled into that doll.

CHARACTER

We only see one living character in this opening sequence, and the idea that she lives with her mother when she shout out to her after finding the doll. She is introduced with not her face but her legs, like she is not the important person. The girl has nothing eye catching at all; the clothes are plain, as people can overlook her easily. Her character indicates the weak vulnerable victim in this type of film, the one that always be saved by the hero/protagonist.

The girl character is not very expressive in her feelings, as her room is very clean and neat, and only her work and the doll is shown. Other than that, her room is very similar to the stairway, nothing but whiteness.

The doll character that is with the girl is seen mostly close up at its face, particularly focusing at its eyes, and every time looking at the girl. There are three shot which comes from the doll's angle to show that it's looking at the girl, however, she isn't noticing it until the very end of the opening. It also show that it can move to places when no one is looking at it, gives a spooky feeling when it's not in the camera.

FONT/TITLES

As doll is the main story in this film, I use the font that looks curly and fluffy to go with the thought that most dolls are cute and cuddly. The credits are switching between the doll shots blacking out. The title also used the same font as the rest, appearing at the very end, like it's the thought of the doll towards the girl character.

I also tried to make the credits come up in the same rhythm as the song so that it look smooth.

LOCATION

The location in the film is a normal simple house where the walls are white with oak coloured floor. The place that’s called home usually represent the safe/comfort place, however, there are now something unusually strange happen inside the house which give the unsafe feeling which the opposite of what it’s supposed to be. This can also relate with the audience that live alone in a house

There are, in total, 3 places seen in the opening: stairways, the girl’s bedroom, and the bathroom. All are in the same colour palette, which can add to the girl character, plainness. However, this is just the opening, she could’ve just moved into the house.

SUB-GENRE

I chose to do a horror thriller which centres on the possessed doll (this convention can be seen in dolls (1987) and child’s play), which is also supernatural. In one of the long shot shows the weak girl character alone with the danger that sits within less than one metre apart, creates the hopeless feeling, not to the clueless character, but to the audience.

The sound, such as suspense violin, creates the scary feeling is used when the doll appears in a strange place. Music used in this film reawaken the childhood; childish feeling, which is when we have the greatest fear of many things because of our ignorance.

(dolly dearest)

There are many horror doll film that the doll can teleport (move when out of the camera) such as ‘the boy’, ‘Annabelle’, ‘dolly dearest’, which I also use it in this film opening. The doll is seen to move 2 times: first is when the girl get up to wash her face, the doll appeared at her right side until she turned her head. And the other time is when the girl character open her eyes to see the doll lying beside her in the bed

TECHNIQUES USED

I use the angle from the doll to secretly tell the audience that the doll is watching the girl. The way the camera not completely still in the doll’s angle is because living things cannot stand still like objects. To create a lonely atmosphere, I used a long shot that captured most of the room and the two characters sitting in the corner of the frame. The room space compared to the space the characters take up give the lonely feelings.

I added some horror sound effect at when the doll suddenly appear next to the girl character in the bathroom, the suspense sound of violin increasing in dynamic kind of telling there will be some jump scare sometime soon, however, the sound disappear suddenly as well as the doll’s body. The other sound effect is added at the end part where the doll is showed lying in front of the girl’s face.