Our Screening

These are pictures we took of our screening of our final media product, FIXATION. We used only one room and layed our table and chairs for people to sit in.

We held the screening on Friday 26th March, we had 61 turn up from year 11, 12 and 13. It was the first time many people saw our final project and we got positive reactions from everyone who came. To advertise our screening we posted a group on facebook and invited everybody to join, we also used word of mouth around our school. Finally we decided that the addition of popcorn and sweets would attract them in.

The purpose off this was to get feedback from our target audience. we printed off questionaires 55 in total and asked everybody to fill them in with their opinions, questionaires is a good way to gather results as it is confidential they didn't have to put their names so people weren't afraid of saying how they felt.

Questionnaire

Age

Gender : Male Female

What is the film’s title?

What genre do you think the film is?

Is the film a British, or American made film?

British American

What type of Cinema would you expect it to be shown in? (tick one box)

• Multiplex (Cineworld, Vue, Odeon etc…)
• Independent Cinema (Phoenix theatre)

Who do you think this film is targeted at?

Male
Female

What age group do you think the film is aimed at?

Are the characters easily identified? Who are the main characters? What role do they play?

Describe what happens in the sequence

What do you think the film is about? (themes)

Do you think the opening sequence works? Does it introduce the film successfully, the characters, the genre, the narrative?

What, in your opinion, works well in the sequence?

What could be improved?

Would you want to watch the rest of the film based on what you have seen so far?
Can you rate the opening sequence out of 10.

This is a copy of the questionaire we handed out, as you can see we asked questions about how they thought the sequence was and we also asked for feedback on how we could improve.This feedback is always helpful as nothing is ever perfect and there is always room for improvement.
 


This is an example of a questionaire completed by a student during the feedback session.

• By looking through all our questionaires we soon realised that our opening sequence had gone down really well with rating ranging from 7 to 10 out 10.
•  Everyone understood key themes and could identify them easily.
•  The genre and characters came across well and we had lots of good feedback on that.
• We had repetitive improvements which was to make the kitchen scene shorter and see more of the shed scene. However the reason we did this was so we could convey the OCD really clearly
• People indentified that it was predominately a male film
• They picked up that it would be for young adults mainly
• Finally, the feedback we recieved was very positive with minor improvement, the titles and graphics were really liked so as a group we were very happy with the outcome

The only problem with this screening is that the people who watched it our a couple of years younger then our target audience. This is because we are still students and we don't have access to 50 plus 22 year olds so we decided that the feedback from 16 to 18yr olds is still better then nothing.

Signed Off

We have officially been signed off!! After so much hard work, commitment, re- shoots and over the past 4 months our life being spent in the media block our teacher has finally said that there is no more we can do and she loves it!

We are very pleased with the outcome of our opening sequence, we have alll really worked hard throughout the whole process and we have got on really well as a team

We cannot wait to show our families, friends and to see the reaction at our screening later this week!

X

Our Final Title Choices

After creating our sequence and adding in different effects and music the last job that we had left to do was the placement of the titles we chose to

• Put these titles on a black background and have a white font colour
• The titles would play over parts of the sequence eg : we would show him counting the cups and saying 1 then we would place a title as he counts 2,3,4 and then cut back to the action
• This was in order to make our piece quicker and to make it more entertaining as the kitchen scene is quite repetitive.

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  We kept all our titles quite plain and neat to reflect the charcters state of mind with OCD, however the font had a slight weirdness about it to reflect the horror genre. The titles spell themselves out so they come up letter by letter in a precise way:

• Our main title was the most important title as it tells the audience what the film is called and therefore we really wanted to make this stand out and be really effective. We decided to make it quite simple however to really emhasise what the whole film was about; the obsession with 4; we made A in FIXATION to FIX4TION. Our colour scheme again was kept simple and we only used the colour red to make the 4 stand out and we used an effect on it to make it move.

• Our Production company was again kept simple, we used a sound effect of birds in the background and green tree productions slowly faded upwards. This title was extremely important as it showed the audience who produced this film and gave our film recognition. Also if people liked our film they would perhaps become more aware of out production company and this would gain us interest

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  Our Distibutor focuses mainly on distributing horror films therefore the font and styple of the text and colours had to reflect that. We again used simple but effective colours and quite an eerie font to suggest horror to the audience. We had a sound effect over the top and this title faded up then down.

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  Overall we learn't that the placement of titles is crucial because you do not want to distract the viewer from the action but you still want them to be really visable. This is why are's work really well because we don't make our audience watch action while titles are showing instead we show them separately but still show them crucial parts of the sequence.

Main Shoot: Shot Log

This was the shot log that we recorded all our shots and takes on during the main shoot. We took turns writing and recording while others helped with filming and sound. I think we used our shot log really well compared to the practise shoot and it really helped us capture footage much quicker. I think we all learnt how important it was to use a shot log on shoot.

Main Shoot: Schedual

Rough Cut of our Opening Sequence

Due to this only being a rough edit, there is no need for titles to be added.
However, the lack of title shots means that there a cuts that look really jumpy as they are supposed to be split by a title shot.
Our Thoughts

• We think that overall we made good progress however by doing our rough cut we have seen vital errors and mistakes and missing shots which we need to improve on in order to make our final sequence better
• We think both actors and actress worked well however some shots can still be improved
• We need to sort out missing shots and make sure they are included next time
• We need to look at finer details-eg OCD actor should have shirt tucked in at all times, shoes on at all times, same pen in each shot
• We like the music choice we have made at the start of the sequence
• We need to change the POV shot from the toaster to the fridge as its not a good shot
• Props need to checked through-pen, toast same colour, butter needs to be soft, 4 keys

Teacher Feedback

•  Like the shed door scene but need to think quite carefully about make up- need to look at fake blood- doesn't look realistic
• OCD- they would know when the news would be on therfore play the news as soon as radio turned on then music plays after when he goes to turn off the radio
• Calender shot-already have the 24th circled? do crosses?
• He needs to switch of the radio

Notes on editing

Guys, while you left for Hollywood I went through out final practise shoot edited sequence and have noted down major elements we left out that makes our piece not make sense and flow properly. I also got feedback from ms dymioti:

• Missing shot
• Turning of the radio and looking at the shed then leaving- he doesn't actually turn of the radio it just stops after the news announcement
• Shot of the camera leaving the shed and sliding across the floor
• Need more CU of in shed -eyes-cut between each look
• Polaroids!
• Reaction shot of toast popping
• CU of eyes looking at shed

Suggestions

Say news date at the start of the radio announcement- because he is OCD wouldn't he know exactly when the news would be on and let music play after as he walked to turn off the radio

Group Meeting: Editing

• Lots of mistakes
• Continuity errors
• Some good shots
• Need more reaction shots
• Broken continuity techniques
• Background sound
• Burnt toast then the next shot doesn't have burnt toast
• lots of takes-need to cut that down in order to save time

Time:1 hour

Practice Shoot

Shed Scene

James' spraying the numbers on the shed

We used photos however we want to use polaroids for the final shoot

India setting up the camera

Spencer filming an outside shot

Just about to film one shot

James in our main location

James and Spencer attempting a point of view shot

India filming an over the shoulder shot

Kitchen location

Spencer filming and India on sound

James acting

Ciara filming and Spencer on sound

Setting up the camera

India with shoot board

Practice Shoot: Shot Log

This again kept all our shots in order and we knew exactly what shot to capture for the editing process. We all took turns recording down capture times and what shots we were using and what shots went wrong so we were not going to capture

Practice Shoot: Capture List

This is our practise shoot shot log. This helped us to know the time codes of each shot and take allowing the editing proces to be quick and easy.

Timeline

Storyboard

Here are some photos of our storyboard:

We began storyboarding a week before our shoot. We initially did a timeline which we used to then add further detail and it made us think about where we would place titles etc. We used different colours for different types of shot eg-yellow was close ups. This allowed us to see if we were using variation of shots as this criteriria would make our opening sequence exciting and interesting.

We split up the jobs of the storyboarding to make it quicker

-India and James did the drawings

-I did the writing underneath identifying each shot

-Spencer sorted out the order generally helped with all jobs

The process of storyboarding was very long however without doing this I don't think we would have a set idea of the opening sequence. It made us actually walk through our sequence and try and overcome problems

Planning: Shooting Schedual

This is the shooting schedual we produced for the practise shoot. This allowed us to plan each shot and know what we needed to do on the day. We wrote down each shot that was needed and then planned that way in which the shot order would go. Therefore we can now follow this shooting schedule ensuring we get the right shots.

Planning: Props

Shed

• Rope
• Tea towel for gag

• Polaroids
• Red paint for the numbers
• Wooden Chair
• Chains
• Cork Noticeboard; divided into 4, with 4 separate pictures on it, one of which being the girl in the shed at the moment. 
• Fake Blood

House

• Radio
• Calendar with dates circled
• Toast (bread)
• Butter
• Food for inside the fridge 
• Cutlery; a knife 
• A chopping board 
• Plastic See Though Bags
• Cups,plates etc
• Briefcase
• Keys 

Things to remember

On the day we noted down some points to remember for the next shoot as this was a practise shoot so we were able to learn from it:

• Make Up Wipes
• Black out sheets
• Polaroids
• Cork Board
• Soft Butter
• Butter and Toast needs to be in fours
• No butter on knife before
• Loaf of bread
• Full fridge
• Tuck in shirt
• Pull up trousers

• Overall we soon realised on the shooting day that we needed more time to prepare costume and setting. The shed we were using was full therefore this took us time to clear out and empty. The costume choices were made that morning therfore it took us more time then expected.
• We have now planned that on the next shooting weekend we will all come the night before and prepare all costumes and settings. Therefore clean the kitchen compltely and get the shed prepared. This will allow us to start shooting as soon as we arrive and we will save time therfore we can spend that on making all shots accurate.

Final Idea: Moodboard

I have decided to gather pictures from our overall final idea to visualise what we intend to do and what we hope to achieve in the opening sequence.

Target Audience-22-30, primary-males,like socialising and horror film, well educated.

Actors- Ciara and James-James will be OCD and Ciara will be distressed kidnapped girl

Kitchen-OCD,neat,tidy,clean

Characterisation-Geeky,tidy,gelled back hair,suits,looks very ordinary

Shed-number four,ECU of girls hands etc,polaroids

Camerawork-close ups, Extreme close ups, medium close ups,Long shots, disorientation

Teacher Feedback

Teacher Feedback to First Proposal
Here is a lists of points our teacher made about or First idea, and how we could improve our idea:

• We were trying to tell two stories, we have a character with OCD, and the same character him kidnapps girls, it's too complicated with both stoies
• Our teacher loved the fact we had an OCD character as it is original
• She liked the kitchen scene, with the toaster popping, showing an average day
• She thought if we had an OCD kidnapper then his kidnappings would all have to be OCD, with everything perfect
• She didn't like our location as it was too homely and not the sort of house a person with OCD would live in
• She thought that our 2 minute opening sequence was trying to tell the whole story to the film
• Our teacher said that there was no sense to who's the opposite, what she meant was that there was no one challenging the kidnapper like a detective or a victim that wants to fight back.

After we got this feedback we had a group meeting and discussed how we would change our final idea. here is a list of things we have changed:

• We have changed the location to James house, it is tidier and looks more like a house someone with OCD would live in
• We have kept the kitchen scene
• We have the kept the OCD kidnapper
• Instead off starting with a shot of the kitchen we start with a shot of the kidnapped girl
• A lot less goes on in our scene now to stop us telling the whole story

Teacher Feedback to Second Proposal


After getting our feedback we all spoke about it and worked on a new narrative a new loaction and finalised the character. We then proposed again and we were passed allowing us to move on to planning for our shooting weekend. Here's some feeback our teacher gave us after the second proposal

• Loved new locations
• Questioning eyesight from the shed to the house-will it work?
• Perhaps use the exterior of one shed and the interior of the other so we get a good shot from thw window to the house
• Complete transformation-really likes it
• We can now start storyboarding and preparing shooting schedules

Proposal: First Idea

Here is the hand-out we gave out to the cless that went along with our presentation. It offers additional information we may not of covered in the presentation and it gives us the key point to genre, target audience, synopsis and character.

OUR OPINIONS

Ciara:Today we presented our proposal for our final idea. I think it went well perhaps we should have focused on how we were going to structure the proposal more. I talked about the synopsis of the opening sequence and about the target audience

James: I think our presentation went well, we covered all the main topics, including genre, characteristics (OCD), actors/location and the target audience. In my opinion we could of delivered the presentation better, what we were talking about was good but our presentation wasn't structured enough.

Spencer: Today we presented our initial proposal. I think the presentation went well, however we could have included more information on the character and location. Also i feel that we did not elaborate on the plot enough and explain the style of shooting we would use.

India: I thought the way we delivered the presentation was good as wel covered every aspect we needed to, also i think that our handout (see above) was good and it explained everything clealy.

Target Audience

Primary Audience

• Males aged between 22-30
• The film certificate would be an 18 therefore we have decided to target the young adults
• Most 18 year olds are more interested in a horrific slasher or a great action film therefore we have decided to target males slightly older then 18
• Enjoy watching horror films
• We are using a male as predominant character therefore attracts men more then girls
• Enjoys watching films, going out, socialising
• Well educated males therefore understand what OCD is and can understand the symptoms and signs for it.

Secondary Audience

• Females aged between 22-30
• Also enjoy horror film aswell as chik flicks etc
• Females that can withstand scares and frightening scenes
• Well educated