audience feedback

Last lesson we showed our classmates our film opening that is nearly finished, just needing some final tweaks. We did this to get some feed back and maybe some things we could add or fix up to make it better. Here it is! :

Editing process...

Title.

While finishing off editing in class today, we decided to move onto our title, thinking about the font we wanted to use and where to add it in. Our original title was 'Bella', however after some thought about the title we decided it did not fit the genre and we would struggle to notify the audience why it is called this in our opening. We decided to look for some more possible titles, after some research we found it hard to come up with a name, but we knew it had to be something related to the audience and obvious to the viewer. I thought about finding a synonym for the word 'spread' as in our movie an infection spreads across the globe. Our new title is now 'Proliferation' a synonym for the word spread. The audience will understand the reason for this title and it also fits with our genre. We thought Bella did not fit with the conventions as it is too nice and didn't fit our film.

After deciding on the final film name we looked for some fonts on the web and used
http://www.dafont.com/. This was a useful website as it gave us lots of different choices. Our initial idea was to use an eroded font, for example scorched earth, stone bird and Birth of a Hero. We decided as a group we liked stone bird the best and went on Photoshop to edit the title and then add it to our opening.



However when we added it to our opening we soon realised although it looked good, it didn't suit the conventions of our genre. This font suited more of a horror/physiological thriller. Most titles in the post-apocalyptic genre use bold sans-serif fonts, for example like in the Last of US and in Children Of Men:

Because of this we chose a title font similar to these as it suits the conventions of our genre.

The final font we chose was Bebas. We felt this font looked the best and is clear so the viewer. We edited this font in Photoshop and added it to our opening. It looks great and fits with our genre.

Shots used - Abbie with the gun.

After our ending wasn't up to scratch we decided to add in some action and our character handling her rifle. We did a variety of shots to show that Abbie can kill and survive however also to show her fear and innocence. The shots we used where...
Two extreme close ups of Abbie with the gun.
A close up
Full shot of the actor kneeling down.
These shots were used to give the viewer a hint into the story to come and to show the depth in the character. The extreme close up's were mainly used to show the characters fear. One was an extrame close up of Abbie's finger slipping of the trigger showing she is scared/nervous anticipating the battle.
The other was an extreme close up of Abbie's eyes to show her emotions.
The final full shot was used to show the viewer that even though she is nervous she knows how to handle herself and keep alive.

Overall the shots contrast each other and look good as it shows the characters personality and charactersitics. It implies that she has fear but is a born survivor and will kill if necessray. Furthermore we also decided to challenge the conventions of the genre by adding fear to the character. On many post-apocalyptic films manny characters dont show fear and vunrability that often, however we have displayed it in this instance. Here is the clip!:

Shots used - sun/smoke.

The last shot of the film was going to be Abbie walking of into the distance, however as the fire was still lit i had the idea of putting it onto the rubble next to her so that the viewer could see the smoke as she walked off into the distance. We carried out this shot and it looks great! The smoke notify's the viewer that there is destructuion in the viewer and it also fits into the conventions as a post-apocalyptic world would have loads of wreckages and destruction. The somke also repressents the bad things our character has done (such as kill people) and the devestatoion in the post-apoclayptic world, however we also caught some sunlight beming down onto here which represents that alothough she has done bad things she is really just innnocent and fighting to survive. The sun, along with the somke blowing towards Abbie was perfect and it is a good ending for our post-apocalyptic film. Here is the clip!:

Shots used - striking match.

One of the shots used in our film opening is an extreme close up of Abbie striking a match. We wanted an extreme close up so that you could see the match lighting. We instructed Abbie to try and light the match twice before being sucessfull this is to show the frustration she has in a post-apocalyptic world, it is also to implie that things will go wrong throughout the movie. When the match finally lights it shows that there is hope for the future. I like this shot becuase it is simple however has a lot of meaning...

Bird shot.

Last weekend when filming I spotted some birds flying over us, I thought it would be good to film them as it would look good in our opening so we did. We have alteast 5 seconds of good footage that we can add into the opening. We can use the birds after the gun shot to show that it has been fired by the reaction of the birds. Birds flying above (especailly crows) are a convention in a post-apocalyptic films thats why i thought it would be good to capture the footage. Some exmaple are in 'World War Z' in the opening. Birds are used to symbolise death ect so it will look quite good in our opening.  Here is the footage we managed to get!:

Audience feedback on our film opening.

Today in lesson we went out and got some audience feedback on our film opening, we asked a few people what they thought of our film opening so far after they have watched it, we got some postotive feeback and also some things to improve on. Doing this will help us make our opening look better, here's the feedback video! :

Production company.

Here Toby has drawn up some of the ideas we had in class for our production companies. A production company is a company that makes the film or promotes it. They all have a logo and a trademark, some well-known companies include Lions Gate, Warner Bro's and Universal studios, however there are many more. I came up with the idea Iron Gate, as this would fit into our genre of post-apocalyptic films. The gate represents the character going into unknown areas scavenging and hunting for survival. The gates are also quite spooky. However after coming up with the idea we soon realised that the idea that we had couldn't be created with the software we had. The idea was too complicated and needed a lot of work. Although we had a back up plan and it was a very good idea. We decided to make a production company with the name coming up but in the background there would be splashes of blood. This fits in better than our original idea as in our opening the character shoots a person and would do throughout the film to survive. We played about with the software are created an awesome logo that looks very good in our opening and also fits well with the genre.

Recce shots.

Today Shannon went out and took some pictures of the locations we are thinking of filming, the first being a Burt out spooky building. We thought this would be a good shot because the building fits in with our genre as it looks like it has been vandalised and looted. It also creates enigma in the fact that the viewer can wonder what has happened to the building. It also highlights the fact that there has been a pandemic and many building's would be destroyed or vandalised post apocalypse. Furthermore we took inspiration from I Am Legend as it includes shots of ruined building and bridges ect. We thought it would look good if we had a shot like this included. In addition we could also have a cut in/cut away shot so if makes it look like our characters hid out is inside that building.
                                                                        
                      
 Another location that we considered filming was on the top of pit tip in Kirkby in Ashfield, here you can see a great view of the surroundings. We thought this would be a god shot to show the viewer the scale of the pandemic and to give him an insight that a large area has been affected. The view from pit tip will also be a good shot to add some titles and play about with the effect's to make it look dark and the sky to look Moorish. Overall the recce shots are good to have as we can look at them and asses wheather we want to film there or not. Hopefully we can go out one day in the week if the weather is right and go and get these shots. Here are the pictures from pit tip:

                                                                                            

Experimenting with title fonts.

After experimenting with the titles we thought we should look at what types of fonts we might consider using. After researching lots of different fonts from post-apocalyptic movies such as I am Legend, World War Z and Pacific Rim we found that fonts are mainly bold, simple, plain and are faded out. We found a number of fonts we liked and thought would fit with our genre and opening, here they are!:

Recording the voice over.

After we had written our script we decided to record it and see what it sounded like. We recorded the interview with a microphone and will edit the voice over the establishing shots, the interview last's roughly 25 seconds which will fit well over the shots. The voiceover is great to add in as it makes the opening more realistic and is a convention of post-apocalyptic movies so it will look great. I wanted to sound as professional as possible for the interview so the register was quite professional. Here is some pictures of us recording the sound to add into our opening in the future:

 

Script.

For our film opening we don't have any voice acting however we do have a voice over of a news broadcast. Me and Shannon are going to do a voice over for an interview that goes over our establishing shots. We got inspiration from I Am Legend and thought it would be a good idea to use a voice over with establishing shots as it set the mood for the film. Our voice over Is an interview that would of been televised and on the radio. It is an interview between a reporter and a scientist talking about how many people have been cured by the vaccine they have created. Because our story is about the vaccine to cure the cold going wrong and causing a pandemic, we decided to include a voice over to give the audience into the story and to set the scene. We are going to add the voice over three establishing shots of vacant areas to intrigue the viewer. Here is the script we created for the interview:

Bloopers.

While filming we obviously made some mistake's and had some bloopers. After going through the footage we thought it would be funny to edit some of the bloopers together, here's the video!:

Evidence of Filming.

Here is some evidence of us preparing to film, setting up props and actually filming. We thought it would be good to film us preparing the day and getting everything sorted such as the camera so we did some video diaries and edited them together, here's the clip! :

Representation of Social Groups.

The social group we are trying to represent is teenagers. Our character is a teenage girl therefore we are representing the social group of 'teens'. Teenagers are usually stereotyped as lazy individuals with no responsibilities or morals. In contrast to this we are portraying our character as a strong, independent individual with a lot of responsibilities. As the character has survived an apocalypse it portrays teenagers as not being lazy and having to fend for themselves like in our storyline. Overall we are trying to represent the social group as being more independent and strong willed instead of spoilt rotten and ran after by parents. Although not all teenagers are like this people say that society is changing and teenagers are getting worse as time goes on, however in our film opening we are contradicting this and sending a message to the audience watching.

Furthermore we are also representing the female in a different way. A convention of post-apocalyptic movies is the strong survivors being male. Our character is female as we wanted to show that they can also survive and not be the weaker individual. We have portrayed our character as being strong willed and a born survivor. In addition to this females are also seen as shying away from labour and getting dirty. Most girls are stereotyped as being pretty and not getting dirty. However we have portrayed our character as the exact opposite, the girl in our movie doesn't really care about her appearance and uses violence to survive although she also displays some innocence as she doesn't want to kill but she just has to for survival. In conclusion we wanted to contradict the fact that girls wouldn't survive if an apocalypse like this were to happen.

Ideas for film name/production company.

Over the past few day we have been discussing what the film should be called and the character's name. We had a few ideas such as 'survivor' however we didn't get anything we really liked. During the lesson we did a bit of research looking for a name. We thought we could call the film the characters name, however we wanted a name that linked to the character and the film itself. We looked on Google translator and started looking for names that meant things related to our character/film. We found the name Bellator which means fighter/survivor in Latin. We shortened this name to Bella and thought it would be a good name to the film as it links the character as she is fighting for her life and is a survivor of an apocalypse.

Furthermore in that lesson we also wanted to come up with a production company for a film, a few ideas where chucked about but then eventually I came up with the name 'Iron Gate Productions'. We are thinking of making an animation of a rusty, spooky gate opening up with a glimmer of light and then in the light there is the production company name. I thought this would be a good idea as it fits with the genre as it looks mysterious.  


I quite like the idea of this production company logo, however mine would have a gate instead of the windows and curtains with the light shining through.

Titles.

Today we had a go at creating some title sequences to see what looked good. We wanted simple font as this is a convention of post-apocalyptic films. We also took inspiration from I Am Legend as the titles were across vacant areas such as empty roads and building in New York City. I said we could have the titles in bold font still while the camera does an establishing shot. We had a play about with the titles and this is what we did, its only a start and we will probably use different fonts and effects but we just wanted to get used to making the titles and using the software first before hand.

Here they are!:

 

These are not all of our shots for the titles, its just a few, we will also have an empty road and a view of Sutton in Ashfield from the top of pit tip.

New storyboard.

After filming last week and editing the footage we realised we had made some mistakes. Some of the footage we got was good however we noticed that Abbie's nails where bright red and you could notice them on camera, this didn't fit with the post-apocalyptic genre as you wouldn't have time to get yours nails done during a pandemic. This meant we had to re-film the whole thing with Abbie wearing gloves. Because of this and the fact the ending didn't look very good we decided to create a new storyboard and add more shots to make it look a lot better, here it is:
The first 28 shots of the story board are exactly the same, the opening starts film a quote, followed by four establishing shots at the start, then it goes into the scenes of the character getting ready, followed by the character putting the leaflet in the fire. The shots are the same up until this point however we have changed the ending. Instead of the hand banging against the window we are going to have a shadow move across the garage door as she is preparing the fire. The character will then run to the rifle in a POV shot, there is then going to be a POV shot of the person outside reaching for the door, the next shot's will be the character preparing the rifle to shoot, as the man walks in the door in the POV it will go to a black screen followed with the character walking into the distance as the man is laid down on the floor. We have made the ending fast paced and included a lot of shots and some action because we want to the viewer to be engrossed in the opening, we are then going to leave a cliff hanger of the character walking off into the distance to create enigma for the viewer.

Weather.

As we made some mistakes while filming before we decided to finish off our filming on Sunday the 17th of November. As most of the filming is done inside we don't need to worry about the weather too much however it needs to be quite gloomy for the establishing shots outside. I have checked the weather forecast just in case to make sure the weather doesn't effect us filming.  We decided to film as early as possible then if mistakes like this happened we would have enough time to re film and get everything perfect.



The weather is suitable so that means we will be able to film on Sunday afternoon from 2.00pm to 5.00pm.

Documentation of Actor.

Here is a documentation of the actor (Abbie) playing our main character in the film opening. We thought it would be unique to do post-apocalyptic movie from a woman's point of view instead of a man which would be different as it is a convention that men always play the lead roles. Our character is a 16 year old girl who has survived a pandemic and scavenges to stay alive, however she also has people who want to kill her and steal her resources so she needs to defend herself. The character is portrayed as a strong, individual woman who can handle a weapon and will do whatever it takes to stay alive. Here is the clip from YouTube:

Planning for Film opening - presentation.

Today I made a power point presentation showing you some elements of planning for my film opening, here is the presentation below! :

Planning for Film opening Pow...

More PowerPoint presentations from Jacob

Risk assesement.

Before filming we had to take health and safety into consideration, in our film opening we used a number of props that could be harmful and needed to be assessed to ensure that no one would get hurt.

• Firstly I needed to make sure we were supervised by an adult (my dad)
• We lit a fire and therefore needed to make sure we wore gloves when handling/lighting the fire.
• We also needed to make sure there where no pellets in the rifle so it wouldn't fire and we could use it safely.
• We also had many dangerous props such as a axe, 3 knife's and a hammer, we needed to make sure we handled them safely to make sure nobody got hurt during the process.
• We should also make sure we do not get close to the fire when lit and always have a bucket of water nearby for emergencies.

We took these things into consideration last weekend and we will also take health and safety and the rules into consideration on Sunday when we are filming.

Sountracks.

Now we have done a bit of filming I wanted to look into potential sound tracks we could use in our opening. While Abbie is getting changed we could play a quiet soundtrack over her getting her kit on and then the music could pick up pace as the person tries to break into her hideout. We could also have a soundtrack over the establishing shots along with the news broadcast to create a dull mood.

I found a website called http://www.audionautix.com/index.php which is very useful as it give you tons of non-copyrighted tracks that we could use in our opening. They are also split into genres so you know what song you would like. I have picked a few tracks we could potentially use in our opening, here they are!

Some of the song's that I found are mysterious and sound sad. I was specifically looking for songs that sound like this because it is a convention from the post-apocalyptic genre.

The song that we could potentially use in our opening are Alien Sunset, Deep Space and Beginning.

Recce shots of locations.

Today Toby went out and took pictures of some places we are considering to shoot for our film opening. We want to get vacant shots in our opening to show there has been a pandemic, therefore we chose some vacant areas such as a road and a empty field here are some pictures of the places we are considering to shoot:

I think the shots look very good especially the empty road. We will defiantly consider shooting at these locations.

Genre Research - Post-apocalyptic.

The Divide.



The Divide is a post-apocalyptic/horror about a nuclear attack that sends groups of people to
flee into an under ground bunker. As the people are trapped in close proximity many start to become insane and soon each individual has to fight for survival.

Camera Shots/Angles:
The very first shot is an extreme close up of the characters eye to show the emotion of the character and the tear running down her eye. You can also see the nuclear missile in the characters eye which is a very clever angle to see the missile hit the ground. The next shot is a close up of the woman leaning against the window as the nuke is going off in the background. There is then a mid shot of the woman stood at the window which eventually zooms in to an over the shoulder shot, it then switches back to a close up of the woman. Finally there is a sequence of camera shots/angles/movement from (0:22-1:30) which switch quickly to show the panic in the individuals as they rush to the underground bunker. A range of shots are used in this period including: long shots, tracking shot, close up and POV shot. A variety of angles are also used, for example; high angle, low angle, and birds eye view. The camera also move's with the action tracking the runners as they sprint to the bunker.
Editing.
The editing is slow at the start of the opening showing the characters emotion as the missile is soaring through the air almost in slow motion (0.00-0.22). However after this the editing is very fast cutting between scenes of people fleeing to the bunker and trying to escape and cutting between camera angles and shots. The editing suits the scenes as it makes the scenes look panicked and rushed as the people would be.
Mise en Scene.
Lighting- The lighting in the opening contrasts from light to dark, firstly showing the missile glowing and the explosion heading towards her and then the low key lighting as the people are fleeing and then when they finally shut the door on the bunker. Low key lighting would be included as it is a convention of post-apocalyptic films.
Sound- Non diegetic sound is included in the opening such as slow, dull music which is a convention. There is also a lot of diegetic sound such as foot steps, the roar of the missile, screaming and doors shutting.
Costumes- the costumes in the opening are normal clothes to convey a normal day until the missile hit, however the costumes will change and get dirtier as the movie goes on showing how tough it is in the harsh conditions underground.
Setting- the setting of the movie is in a crowded building, like a work place to show a normal environment, however as they reach the bunker the setting changes to a gloomy crowded environment.
Expression- There are two main expressions in the opening which include sadness and horrified.
Setting up the enigma.
The opening does a good job of making you wonder what will happen next and making you watch on. You ask a number of questions to yourself when watching the opening such as 'where did the missile come from? and 'how will the survivors stay alive?'.

Overall the opening was well constructed and had a good story line. I would like to convey some of the panic displayed in this opening into my opening for example I could have a number of quick cut shots of the rifle and Abbie's emotions to display panic and anxiety.

Filiminng Location.

Today from 8:30am to 10:30am we started filming our opening. We filmed inside of the garage and outside. We took some establishing shots of the fields and started shooting the shots from the storyboard in the garage. We took as many shots as possible so we had a lot to work with during editing. While filming we did a number of video diary's showing what we where doing. Here are some pictures I took of the set I created in my Garage:

As you can see we tried to make the set look as post-apocalyptic as possible by creating an old dark look to the set. Mise en Scene was very significant in the set for example we used dark lighting and many props to create the right mood. The props included are:

• mattress
• shovel
• axe
• water bottle
• petrol canister x2
• army bag
• rifle
• knife x3
• logs
• battery powered lamp
• boots
• wellies
• incinerator
• disinfectant spray
• old kettle
• cold leaflet.
• rifle

All the props were used for a purpose such as the rifle, incinerator and mattress were meant to make the set look like a real hideout that the girl had been living in for the past 10 years.
Props were a big part in filming as it make the set look more realistic. We also had to make one of he props included, which was a leaflet. The leaflet was made on word and was a very important part in our film opening as it gave the viewer a clue about how the apocalypse was caused. This is the leaflet:

Overall I enjoyed filming today and it was a good experience. We will start editing the footage Monday and see what we need to add.

Film Research - Real audiences.

In preparation for our filming we wanted to get some feedback from the public on what they thought of our film and anything they think we could improve on to make it better. We chose the most appropriate audience of 15 and over. We interviewed two 17 year old males, two 17 year old females and a 30 year old woman. We asked they a series of questions related to our opening and the genre. Here are the interviews:

Although my interviewing skills were terrible we gained a lot of knowledge to help us make a better film opening. For example we learned that the audience like post apocalyptic films because of the action and scenes that make you jump. In addition they also like post-apocalyptic films that are scary and mysterious. Furthermore the interviewees said they liked the cliff-hanger at the end and the overall plot for the opening. The interviewees gave us some things we could also add to build tension such as Abbie being followed during the opening. Overall the comments helped will help us develop our story board and help us make a better film opening.

Planning for filming - Weather.

We are planning to start filming in my Garage on Saturday from 8:30am to 11:30am We have checked the weather to see if the conditions are suitable , here is the weather for Saturday from BBC weather:

The weather for Saturday will be cloudy and drizzle at 8.00am and 11.00am Overall the conditions are good especially the humidity as this creates the mood we are looking for in our opening. It will be fairly dark and misty this will create enigma and set the scene. We are planning to film most of the shots in my garage as that's where most of it takes place, however we also need to plan a couple of other days to film to get the establishing shots and other bonus shots we might include. The recording will also be done on Saturday with the filming. I look forward to filming on Saturday morning :).

Inspirations - POV shot from Breaking Bad.

As we want to include a range of shots in our film opening we decided to look at Breaking Bad for some inspiration as it is a very successful TV series. As we were watching the show we noticed we could include a POV shot in our film, however of an object inside something. This shot looks very good when executed well, here's some example's from Breaking Bad:



As you can see the shots look fantastic and we hope to include two of these shots in our opening, one where the camera is inside the bag and one of Abbie reaching into the camera as if she's picking up a log.

Anamatic.

Today we created an animatic for our film opening. An animatic is basically sketching every shot of the film and show how long the shot will be on for. The animatic helped us as it gave us an idea on how long our opening will last for and if we need to add or take out any shots. Here it is!-

Exerimenting with the camera + software.

On the third lesson of planning we decided to do some experimenting with the cameras and editing software to test out different shots we could use in the opening and how they would be edited togehter. We want to show of our skills in the opening as much as possible by having a range of good shots and camera work along with great editing skills. To do this sucessfully we need to practice and test things out, therefore we decided before filming that we would use the camera and editing software to try things out and see what looks good and what doesent work instead of doing things wrong in our opening.

We practiced many different shots and angles including, close ups, over the shoulder and some match on action. We also edited the footage together and tested some of the software out on Preimere Pro. After editing the footage we realised we had made some mistakes. We wanted to make a scene in the opening where Abbie was putting her coat on, howver we wanted to include various amounts of shots to make it visually interesting. We tried to shoot this however while editing we noticed it wasnt very smooth and looked  quite stiff. The solution to this is that on every shot we should of had her puttting her whole coat on every time and choosing shots to use in the footage, instead of this we did a seperate shot for her putting her arms in the coat seperately thereofre it didn't flow.

The whole point of the exercise was to test some angles out and the editing software to make sure we make mistakes now rather than later and so that we can work out what angles fit best. Here's the clip:

Moodboard

I have made a mood board on my film opening;  
The mood board represents what type of mood and feeling I want to portray in my film opening. The mood board contains words and pictures that link to the opening. The disease type pictures relate to the disease that has spread casing the apocalypse, this links with the injection picture wich portrays the vaccine that people took which caused the apocalypse. The little girl from the last of us portrays the type of vunrable character we are trying to portray in the film. Furthermore the vacant, destroyed places represent what the world would look like during the apocalypse and lastly the old rooms represent the hideout that we are trying the create in my garage.

Recce shots of locations.

As a group we decided to start looking at locations for our film. Since we didn't want too many locations in our film we decided to stick to just one. I put forward my garage which is fairly old a dingy, we thought this would be a good place to use as our survivor hide out as it looks old, authentic and it is small therefore the infected wouldn't find her easily. Here is the inside of my garage!-

This will be Abbie's hideout where she sleeps and uses the logs she has chopped to keep warm and take shelter. A you can see the garage looks compact and old showing the effect the virus has had on building's and technology. We will be filming most of the opening in this room however it will be decorated to look better and we will also add some props such as a compact log burner, an army bag and an old matrass to make it look like her hideout. We decided to do the film in a girls perspective because this is unusual in post-apocalyptic films. Abbie will use this room for shelter and to scavenge for food in the wilderness.

The location of my house and garage is in the countryside and is vacant. We thought this would suit the film as her hideout would be in a quiet area where she couldn't get infected. Here is the picture of the garage door and the window we will be using for the cliff-hanger at the end:

Mindmap

So today we started our planning for our final video. Firstly in class we created a mind map of different ideas linked to the conventions and themes found in some of our post-apocalyptic research. Here is what we put together!-

The Mind Map has some of our key ideas for what we could include in the video, it also has some conventions of post-apocalyptic films that we will be defiantly be using in our opening for example, low key lighting, a news broadcast and vacant shots.

story board.

After the first lesson of planning our movie opening we decided we had enough inspiration from post-apocalyptic films and a good idea to start our storyboard. Our story is about a girl who is a survivor of a pandemic. Scientists have found the cure to the common cold in 2015 and vaccinated hundreds of thousand's of people, however the cure went wrong and instead of curing the people it created a virus spreading world wide. Scientists managed to control the virus to a certain extent however the virus can still spread and has affected most of the population. 10 years later Abbie is the survivor of the apocalypse and is doing all she can to stay alive...

Because we had the idea we created a story board for the opening. We had to think about including a range of shots and making a opening that captivates the audience and makes them interested in the opening. We got inspiration from many films from our research for example I Am Legend, The Book Of Eli and Breaking Bad. The story board contains each different shot we will be including in our opening. Take a look!:

How films attract their audience.

There are many ways in which a films attract their audiences. Examples include:
Posters.

This poster is from terminator salvation and is created to attract their target audience to watch the film. Posters are simple, cheap to made and a good way to advertise the film as you can place them anywhere. However they do have disadvantages such as many people by pass the poster and they could also get vandalsised.
Trailers.

As you can see this is an example of a movie trailer. Movie trailers are used to show a massive audience usually the best clips of the movie to captivate them and make them want to see the full movie.
Internet.
Films can also be advertised on the internet, clips and images on the internet can be dislayed on a popular website to attract potential customers. The disadvantage to this is that some people would by pass the ad and would be more interesed on the other things on the web page.

Radio.
Films can also be advertised by the radio, for exmaple some marketes from the film may pay for their film to be advertised on the radio or the the radio presenter could give away free tickets or promote the film. The disadvantage of this is that their are no images so the audience wouldn't get a feel for the film.

Overall the film comapnys need to make sure they promote the film way by doing these things to attract their target audience.

How upcoming films attract their audience.

New films that are being introduced into the film industry need marketing to make people go and watch it. If films don't attract enough people to watch their film then not many people will go and watch it. Advertisement play's a massive part in a films success, if the film look's good to potential audiences they have more of a chance of going to watch it.

When I was on YouTube yesterday I came across a viral video, the video looked very interesting and had a whopping 45,000,000 views!! The video is called 'Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise' and is the fastest growing video of all time. The video looks like a normal You Tube clip however it is actually an advertisement for an upcoming film called 'Carrie'. The advertisers have been very clever and noticed that pranks on You Tube are very popular and get a lot of views in a short amount of time. They used this knowledge to create a prank related to the film which went viral very quickly. At the end of the video the film was promoted, this was a very clever way to get an upcoming film promoted and will make many people want to watch the film due to this clip.

Here is the video:


This is a great example of smart advertisement of a movie and how upcoming films attract their audience. Many films are promoted in the same way, by TV, radio, billboards, leaflets ect. Although these techniques do bring in people to watch the film many people get bored of them. However this film has been promoted in a very clever way and advertisers have thought out of the box to get their target audience to watch their film. This film has not stuck to the conventions of film advertisement and therefore the film will stand out from the others and potentially bring in more people to watch the film.

Ratings for post-apocalyptic films.

From the website http://www.imdb.com/list/f0vG-RUAoT8/ I have found some ratings from audiences watching post-apocalyptic films. This website is very useful as there is a lot of information about post-apocalyptic films including audiences, actors included and also info about production companies ect.

The link I have included in this post shows 200+ post-apocalyptic movies from 1927 to 2013 with an IMDB rating with a minimum of 5 starts out of 10. This tells me that post-apocalyptic films are rated very highly and obviously work well with a range of audiences. I think post-apocalyptic films work well because they are interesting in the sense that some of these events could actually happen and people to tend to wonder what would happen if these events occurred.

The list from the website includes different post-apocalyptic scenarios including nuclear warfare and fallout, zombies, extra-terrestrial attack's, virus and pandemic, environmental climate change and many more.

Overall from these statistics I have found that post-apocalyptic films are very popular and tend to work well with audiences if done well.

Research on Costumes.

Many different variations of costumes are used in post-apocalyptic films. Costumes play a big part in all films for example costumes help to set the scene in a movie and make it look more realistic and visually interesting, they also help the viewer to get a look into a characters personality and costumes are designed to make the character look how he or she acts. Costumes are suited to where the film is set and helps the scene look more authentic.

Here are some examples of costumes in post-apocalyptic films and how they vary:

Here are the costumes used for the main character in Oblivion- 

The costumes used in Oblivion are made to look futuristic because the film is set in the future after the apocalypse.

Here are the costumes used for the main characters in The Book Of Eli-

As you can see the costumes are not futuristic in any shape or form compared to Oblivion's costume designs, the costumes in this film are made to look scruffy and old because the film is set after a nuclear war. These costumes suit the film very well.

 

Overall costumes are used to suit the context of the film. After looking at costumes from post-apocalyptic films most are either futuristic, or scruffy looking, the reason for this is because most post-apocalyptic films are set in the future and are after a catastrophic events therefore the clothing will be old or futuristic.

 

I think the costumes we will be going for will be similar to The Book of Eli because they are easy to create and it looks very authentic. The futuristic costumes would probably be out of our budget and the old costumes look just as good.



                                                                                                                                 

Typical Sound Tracks/Music for my Genre.

From my research on post-apocalyptic conventions I found that there is a certain type of music used in post-apocalyptic movies. Slow and depressing tracks are usually used to create enigma and get you into the mood of the film. Because post-apocalyptic films are about disasters and death the music wouldn't be high tempo and up-beat, it is always low tempo and rather sad.

Here are some examples of the music included in some post-apocalyptic movies:
This example is from I Am Legend:

 

As you can see from this clip the music is very slow and played by a piano, this fits with the movie opening and genre, the music then fades out slowly. This music is a good example as it creates mystery and makes you feel sad and sorry for the character in the voice over as the music is playing.

 

Here is another example of track from a post-apocalyptic movie, This example is from Book Of Eli:

Quite a lot of sound is included in this clip to create mystery and tension in this opening scene, firstly there is a very quiet chime of some sort that plays at the start, the music then gets louder and includes more instrument which I think is a violin to indicate something is going to happen. As well as the music there is a sound track of whirring wind in the background which blends in with the music well and makes it sound more scary and mysterious.

Overall the music and sound tracks used in post-apocalyptic films is quiet, instrumental and sad. Sound tracks are used such as wind and birds quirking. From this research I now have a good idea of what soundtracks and music I shall use in my movie opening.

Classification categorys.

Today I am going to looking into different classification category's for my chosen genre, the reason for this is because we need to make sure our video is suited to the classification rating, if not it will not appeal to the audience and they will not watch the movie. It also may have inappropriate content for a certain age range therefore we need to make sure we get it right.

Post-apocalyptic films have many different classifications, varying between PG-13 to 18. For example Pacific Rim is rated a 12, After Earth is rated a 12A, World War Z is rated a 15 and The Divide is rated 18.  I would say the average rating for a post-apocalyptic film is a 15, because it is very rare to see a PG and 12A's do not come out that often, furthermore 15 is the most popular classification over an 18 as they are most common in horror's and physiological thrillers.

Overall I think my group should use a classification of a 15 because that is the most suited audience for our movie and we can relate to that audience because


Suitable for all

Parental guidance

Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over

Video release suitable for 12 years and over

Suitable only for 15 years and over

Suitable only for adults

Adult works for licensed premises only we are a similar age group.

Production and Distribution companies.

Production and Distribution companies make and market a film, without these companies films wouldn't exist. A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of the film. The distributor may set the release date of the film, when it will be released and where it will be shown. A production company is responsible for the development and filming of the movie. I'm going to be looking into what production and distribution companies are associated with my genre.

To help me with this I found a web page on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_production_companies which shows you a list of production and distribution companies and what films they have made.

By looking at this I can see that the companies like to stick to the same genre and audience maybe because they are good are making these particular films and like to stick to it. The genre I will be looking at is post-apocalyptic, as you can see from the chart I can pick out certain companies that like to make post-apocalyptic films, for example....

• 20th Centaury Fox made Planet of the Apes and  Independence Day.
• Universal Studios made Battleship and Oblivion
• TriStar Pictures made Terminator 2: Judgement day and District 9
• I Am Legend and Book of Eli both distributed by Warner Bros
• The Asylum produces low budget films with similar scripts to post-apocalyptic movies such as Battleship, Battle: Los Angles and I Am Legend.

After researching I have found that production and distribution companies like to stick to a specific genre or audience and many dabble into many different genres and audiences rather than sticking to just one.

Analysis of opening credits.

Today I'm going to be analysing opening credits from post-apocalyptic films. The websites I will be using to get the titles from are- http://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/ and http://www.watchthetitles.com/collections/Film, take a look!

The first opening credits sequence I will be analysing is Pacific Rim, a recent post-apocalyptic film about robots invading earth.
Pacific Rim (2013) — Art of the Title

The order of the titles are as follows:

• T1-00.02-DIRECTED BY.
• T2-00.08-SCREENPLAY BY.
• T3-00.13-STORY BY.
• T4-00.20-PRODUCED BY. (1)
• T5-00.25-PRODUCED BY. (2)
• T6-00.30-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER.
• T7-00.37-DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
• T8-00.43-PRODUCTION DESIGNERS
• T9-00.47-EDITED BY.
• T10-00.52-MUSIC BY.
• T11-00.56-COSTUMES DESIGNED BY.
• T12-01.01-CO-PRODUCER
• T13-01.06-CASTING BY.
• T14-01.12-VISUAL EFFECTS SUPIVISOR. (1)
• T15-01.16-VISUAL EFFECTS SUPIVISOR. (2)
• T16-01.22-ANIMATION SUPIVISOR.
• T17-01.27-ACTOR (1) TO ACTOR (12)-02.02-T24.
• T25-02.06-PRODUCTION COMPANIES.
• T26-02.11-PRODUCTION COMPANIES.
• T27-02.16-PRODUCTION COMPANY.
• T28-02.22-TITLE OF THE FILM.

As you can see the titles have a specific order and a specific time they come on, this will be planned before hand for a reason. After analysing the terminator title sequence and pacific rim I have noticed some patterns that occur in the titles. For example the director always comes at the start of the titles or at the end maybe because of the importance of his role. Furthermore the titles always come close to each other minimum 4 seconds apart and maximum 7 seconds apart. Finally the titles are always in organised form and are grouped together when they come on. I have gained a lot of information from analysing these titles and will use this when creating my title sequence for my final video.

Researching Film openings/scenes - Mise en Scene.

Today I am going to be analysing how Mise en Scene is used in my chosen genre (post-apocalyptic). Mise en Scene refers to everything that goes into the composition of the shot including:

• Lighting
• Sound
• Costumes
• Editing
• Props
• Camera Shots/Angles
• Set Design
• Cinematography   
• Locations

Basically everything included in the scene...

Today I am going to be analysing a short clip from Battle los angles on how Mise en Scene is used for effect on the viewer. Battle Los Angles is a post apocalyptic film about a squadron of U.S marines who become the last line of defence against a global invasion. Here is my Prezi informing you on how Mise en Scene is used in this film opening, hope you enjoy!

Researching Film openings/scenes - Special Effects.

Today I am going to be analysing special effects in post-apocalyptic movies. Special effects are visual or sound effects that are introduced into a motion picture. Special effects or (SFX) are used in the film and entertainment industry to create effects that cannot be achieved my normal means, such as travel to other star systems. They are also used when creating the effect by normal means is prohibitively expensive, such as an enormous explosion. Special effects are used frequently in post-apocalyptic movie's to make them realistic and visually interesting.

Today I'm going to be analysing a scene from War of the worlds. War of the worlds is a film out an alien invasion and what takes place during and after the attacks :

             
    This film uses special effects all the way through the movie. Special effects are a key part to play in this movie as you will see by the use of them in this scene.

Straight away the scene uses special effects as you can see from (0.00-0.10). Firstly you can see there is a giant robot alien in the scene, special effects are blaintintly being used here to create the visual effect that the robot is real. Along with this there is a sound effect being used when there is a long shot of the robot, sound effects are used to make the scene more realistic, the sound effect used in this clip is a loud mechanical trumpeting this is used to make the viewer know the robot is going to act and that something bad is going to happen. From 0.10-0.40 there is also another sound effect being used, this sound is to the viewers eyes coming from the robot and is a whirring sound, as the seconds go on the whirring intensifies giving the viewer an indication that the robot is doing something and is about to attack. Furthermore after the whirring sound occurs there it is then followed by a zapping sound. In this scene the zapping sound is accompanied by another special effect, this time it is a beam of light interpreted by the viewer as a laser.  As the laser hits the people they disappear into a cloud of ashes this is another special effect that is being used. In addition to this there are many special effects used from (1.00-2.10) for example sound effects such as explosions, smashing glass sounds, screeching and the sound again mechanical sounds coming from the robot. There is also special effects such as fire, props being destroyed and again the robot patrolling the streets.

Overall this scene is jam packed full of special effects. Special effects are key aspects in many films making the scene more realistic and visually interesting along with the sound effects to accompany the visual effects. Special effects are one of the many conventions of post-apocalyptic films. The special effects in this scene are used very effectively in creating an immerse experience for the viewer.                                                                                                                                                                           

Researching Film openings/scenes - Shot types/Distances.

Today I am going to be analysing Shot types and Distances. I have chosen a scene from Battleship another post-apocalyptic film about an alien invasion. Here is the scene:


There are various Shot types and distances in this scene for exmaple the shots used are:
- close up
- long shot
- over the shoulder shot
- low angle
- high angle
- establisghing shot
- medium shot
- POV

Becuase the scene is at sea the distance of the shots are far away. Most of the shots are from a far distance as the props are massive. The scene also uses long distance shots so you can see the scale of the attack. Usually post-apocalyptic films uses long distance shots because of the massive props and special effect used in the movies such as UFO's and nuclear bomb explosions.

Researching Film openings/scenes - Edititng.

Today I am going to be analysing editing used in post-apocalyptic movies. Editing is how scenes are cut and fitted together. I have picked a scene from the post-apocalyptic movie World War Z. Here is the scene I will be analysing:


The Scene lasts for 1:33 and shows lots of different camera shots and editing. The editing used in the scene is very fast paced with quick cuts between each shot, this is used for effect on the viewer. For example quick editing makes the scene look more exhilarating and fits to the action. Because this is a zombie outbreak is makes the scene look panicked as the shots are so quick one after the other. A variety of camera angles are also used in the scene, for example from 0.00 to 15.00 there is a long shot, to a close up, to a tracking shot from a high angle, to a zooming shot. Lots of camera angles and movement are used in quick succession to make it look more action packed. The editing is fast for a specific reason.

Furthermore there is a lot of movement from the camera, this is a convention of post-apocalyptic movies, camera movement is used in this scene to track the running people and the vicious attacks in the scene.

Overall the editing in this scene is very choppy and fast paced, we may used some fast editing in the opening however not a lot because the opening needs to build the mystery to the film and create tension therefore we don't want it to fast.

Analysing title sequences.

Today I analysed a title sequence from 'the terminator'. I wanted to analyse a title sequence from a post-apocalyptic film to help me with my title sequence for my film. I found the title sequence on this website - http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-terminator/ This website comes in handy as it shows you a range of different title sequence's to fit my chosen genre, which is great because it gives me lots of ideas that I can use in my title sequence for my movie opening.

The things I am looking for are the order of the title's, the time between each title appearance, the speed in which the title comes up, the font of the titles, how big the font is, the editing, the camera shots used in showing the titles, and the music used.

I have made a timeline of the title sequence to help me break down how it works and what title comes where, here it is!

I have made the timeline to look like a heartbeat sensor to suit my genre of post-apocalyptic and in fact terminator the film. From doing this I have gained more knowledge on how title sequences work and I now have a good idea on how to create one for my film.

Researching Film openings/scenes - Lighting.

Today I am going to be researching into lighting according to my chosen genre which is post-apocalyptic.
The Film I have chosen to analyse is The Road. I have found a website to help me analyse every separate shot, the website is very useful as it is a blog that shows you every single scene in the movie, here is the link! - http://evanerichards.com/2012/2571

The opening three shots of the film have high key lighting, the man is standing outside and it is a very bright summers day, however in this scene the character is obviously dreaming because as I have found out in my research the conventions of a post-apocalyptic movies are low key lighting and straight away after the first scene there is a transition to dark lighting. For example the start goes from light to dark very quickly:

 shot 3 to shot 4 transition...



      After this the opening has very dark lighting which suits the genre of the film. .Low key lighting is used to create tension and enigma throughout the film. Post-apocalyptic films have dark imagery and therefore needs dark lighting to suit it. For example these are the fifth and sixth shots in the film...

             shot 5 and shot 6

 Overall the lighting in this film is dark and gloomy also like many of the other post-apocalyptic films I have analysed. From lighting research I have found that low key lighting is common and the transition from light to dark therefore I will include this in my film.