Critically Evaluating My Video Production By Hayley Outhwaite

Maintaining continuity is considered one of the main priorities with in the production of a film. It is an editing technique that is used to avoid irregularity in scenes. In relation to our film we evidently showed use of continuity editing in our conversation scenes and scenes where the actresses were walking through corridors. We also chose to include jump shots in our film to keep the audience engaged and to avoid our film being labelled as boring; evidence of where we used jump cuts is in the morning sequence when Lucy is getting ready for college. Instead of including every step of her preparing for college by using very long shots we made the shots shorter and so when the film was played it gave the scene a rushed effect which is what we initially wanted the opening scene to feel like.
The genre of our 5 minute film is a psychological thriller as it has a lot of similar qualities to other films with in this genre such as ‘Seven’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE&feature=related) and ‘Hard candy’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-C2H4ipxz0), this film is a disturbing film that keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way until the end, I liked this quality and so I wanted to make our film as captivating as this. The film that we took the most ideas from however was ‘The uninvited’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-C2H4ipxz0) this is a film that has a lot of similarities to ours as it is also about a girl with a mental illness who has an imaginary friend that is her sister much like in our film where Lucy has schizophrenia and has an imaginary friend that is Emily-Jayne. Another positive idea that we liked from the film ‘The uninvited’ was the twist at the end of the film and so we tried our best to incorporate that at the end of our film and in my opinion I think that it worked really well as there was a gradual build up of the story and then it was revealed that Emily-Jayne was in fact a figure of Lucy’s imagination.
As Richard Dyer states in his ‘Theory of Entertainment’ that a person chooses a film that shows or gives them something that they want but don’t have at that time. For instance if a person is lacking money they will watch a film with lots of wealthy people, fancy cars and clothes. In my opinion I feel that many people will watch our film as it is entertaining throughout and keeps the audience guessing what is going to occur next. Educationally I feel that our film provides plenty of information about schizophrenia and how it effect’s a person as we see when Lucy forgets to take her tablets. Also as it gives people an insight into how schizophrenic people are, both sufferers and people who know someone with the mental illness can relate to our film as they are have either had similar experiences themselves or they know someone who has.
When making our film and both our sources of advertisement we were trying to create a confusing yet spooky experience for the audience. For our first source of advertisement which was our poster I feel that we definitely managed to create a sense of spookiness as firstly after collaborating our ideas together for our final poster we decided to incorporate a dark patterned background to try and create an eerie feel, we also chose to make the image of Emily-Jayne stand out even more than it already did by colouring the area surrounding her with a bright white colour resembling light. I personally got this idea from when I was researching other posters and I came across the poster ‘Ghost’ where the two main characters are embracing each other and surrounding them is a bright white light, this ties in with the storyline of the film as it is about the afterlife and what happens after we die which is much like our own film where Emily-Jayne is a ghost. We also decided to include the names of the two main characters as we were aware from our research that the names of the main characters are almost always included in a films poster in order to inform the audience who the actors are that they are watching on the scene. Another clever aspect of our film I felt was the writing ‘chasing her ghost…’ which was repeatedly written down the left hand side of our poster, I feel that this writing looks really effective and ties in really well with the aspect of someone suffering from a mental illness as it gives the impression that someone has repeatedly scribbled this down in frustration or confusion over something.

For our second source of advertisement which was our radio trailer we wanted to keep tied in with the theme of confusion and mystery like our poster did and so we decided upon a piano playing for our background music. This piece of music was repeated throughout our 30 second radio trailer which created a ghostly effect. Lucy and Shelley simultaneously spoke in our trailer which gave the feeling that they were chanting and made what they were saying a lot more powerful to the audience; we also used clips from the film when Lilly is saying “No I don’t know what’s happening” and she also says “Emily-Jayne Hart’ several times and on the final one an echo effect is used to create even more of an eerie feel to the film.
Here is our radio trailer: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifK738zsF0&feature=player_embedded)

In order to gain a real insight into what the audience thought of our film we made sure that we gathered feedback from our audience. We did this by firstly producing a number of questions, after this we set up our camera and recorded five people from our audience give their answers. By doing this we were able to look at their opinions of our film and the criticism that we got we could then use constructively in order to improve our film. For instance we were told that our film lacked music and so in order to better our film we incorporated more music into our film which included a song from our college’s band ‘Our Friends In Vegas’. As well as this we also added music from Garageband which helped make scenes more effective and also build up tension in some cases.
The majority of our audience members said that they didn’t know that the twist was coming at the end of our film and so this is really good positive feedback for our film as we wanted to make the twist unpredictable to the audience and we succeeded so no changes needed to be made in the final editing stages of our film. We chose to interview people around the same age group as us as these were the target audience for our film and also the main characters were of a similar age group too and so in most cases the audience will be able to relate to Lucy and Emily- Jayne in many ways.
Overall we were very pleased with the audience feedback that we gathered because as well as positive things being said about our film that enabled me and my fellow group members to be proud of our work, we were given criticism that we could then use in a positive way in order to make our film even better and work on satisfying our audience even more. After been given reviews such as 3, 4 and 4.5 out of 5 stars I myself am very pleased with how the public has reacted to our film and am now sure that all of our hard work has paid off.

The vital piece of technology that helped us during the course of planning and researching for our film was the internet, without this our group would have struggled gathering any information. The internet also enabled us to access http://www.blogger.com/ where we each had an account and after every piece of work we did we could then upload it onto blogger, this made things easier for our group as we could see what work had been done and what work needed to be done. As well as blogger playing a huge role in the planning and research of our film so did http://www.youtube.com/ as we used this site to look for radio trailers to gather research for our own work and to also upload our work such as our audience feedback, radio trailer and our final film.

In order to create our posters we used the computer programme ‘Photoshop’ which I found very difficult to use at first but after a few lessons with my teacher explaining how to use the basic tools on the programme I felt that I excelled in this part of our work especially as I was the one that made our final poster.

For our radio trailer we used a zoom H4 recorder to record our voices, we then placed our audio onto Garageband which we then used to create our final radio trailer. For all of our filming we used a Sony HVD 1000 video recorder along with a tripod that made sure that the shots we recorded weren’t jerky or uneven in any way. Finally in order to edit our film we used the software ‘Final Cut Express’

The Lost Hart Finished Product By Matthew Helliwell

Here is our film 'The Lost Hart' I uploaded it to youtube earlier this afternoon.


Here is the embedded video.



Alternatively here is the link.

The Lost Hart

Audience Feedback by Shelley Brookes and Hayley Outhwaite

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPcAuSgtW8U

For our audience feedback we interviewed several people after getting them to watch the unfinished film. This was so that we could get feedback on what else needed doing and any changes that could be made. A problem we faced when recording our feedback was that the tape we were using ran out of space. Therefore we had to find an alternative tape to use.

The questions we used were:

1. What did you enjoy about the film?
Throughout the film, were you able to pick out any favourite parts?
Specifically, was there any parts that stood out to you?
Were you able to follow the film with ease?
2. What did you think about the twist at the end of the film?
Was it easy enough to understand?
Is there anything you would change about the twist or the build up to the main climax?
Was the ending obvious throughout the film?
3. Was there any part that you didn't enjoy, or you didn't think was necessory?
(Answer Yes) Specifically, what didn't you enjoy?
(Answer No) Would you say there was nothing wrong with our film?
4. Do you agree with the 12 rating of the film?
(Answer Yes)Why?
(Answer No)What rating would you give it and why?
5. Overall, what star rating would you give the film?

These questions were produced by Lucy Davies as shown earlier on on blogger.

Critically Evaluating my Video Production by Shelley Brookes

Continuity editing is a common technique within our film and is difficult to maintain. Although we showed that we were able to do this as our shots were all continuous. We used it to show the actresses walking through doors, conversations and all other continuous shots. We also used jump cuts to deliberately miss things out for example walking to another place.

Our film is a psychotic thriller and has similar aspects of other films. These include, The Uninvited (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnqDcdyI-qQ ), Gothika (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0e8SfWvXdM ) and The Butterfly Affect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5dVQfzjDS4 ). It has a thrilling affect and causes a sense of confusion. We used The Uninvited for ideas on how to create a twist, as in this film there is also a girl suffering from a mental illness. As a result of her illness in the film she has an imaginary friend who is her dead sister. Her sister leads her to kill their step mother. Whereas in our film her imaginary friend is a girl who use to go to the college she attends. The girl is a positive attribute to her life as she helps her with her problem, which is being bullied.

Towards the end of our film we were trying to create horror by having Lucy sat with her friend Emily-Jane and the camera is a mid-length shot of them both, then cut to the teacher Simon and then back to the shot before but with Lucy sat on her own. This is like at the end of the film The Uninvited where the girl is stood with her sister and then the camera cuts to her dad and then back to her on her own covered in blood and holding a knife.

‘The Theory of Entertainment’ by Richard Dyer states that a person picks films that show or give them something they don’t have at the time. For example if a person is lacking abundance then they will watch a film with lots of money, cars or clothes in it. This is a film that shows wealth.

We were trying to achieve a sense of fear, confusion and suspense with the audience when making both our film and our two sources of advertisement. It was reflected in our poster by the way we used dull colours but with a splash of white around the main character Emily-Jane to make her stand out, as we were hoping she did in the film. Also, the old fashioned writing may imply it has something to do with something from the past. We decided to have Lucy and Emily-Jane on the poster as they are the main characters and this is how most posters are set out. This is shown in the poster for the film ‘Date Night’. It is an image of both Steve Carell and Tina Fey who are the main characters in the film. We then repeat the writing ‘chasing her ghost..’ all down the left hand side of the poster. This is to show an annoyance or something that is in the film that the character may not be able to get rid of. In our film this would be her mental illness.

Our other source of advertisement was a radio trailer. We used a piece of music which was performed by only a piano. This same piece is repeated over and over which creates a creepy feel to the audience. We used voices of the same pitch so that it creates a better sense of panic when we use the extracts from the film. This is due to the big difference in the tone of voice. We then added an echo on to the voice of the character; this dragged it out and enforced a sense of confusion and suspense on to the audience as they aren’t sure what’s happening but will want to find out by seeing it.

The film Law abiding citizen uses music from a piano at the beginning of the trailer. When a climax occurs though the music changes and speeds up. The music is usually background music on a trailer so that the voice of characters or the narrator can still be heard. But the music plays the biggest past as it implies to the audience the type of film it’s going to be. In our trailer it is the same all the way through which will cause confusion as it gives nothing away about the film.

When we first got our brief we decided we wanted to make a storyline with a twist at the end of it. This way they will think they know what’s happening all the way through the film and then at the end it will get them thinking as they realise they are far from the truth. To help us with our choice of film I conducted some research using a questionnaire. It consisted of questions that would help us with our choice on what genre to use. In my results I found that most short films were seen on the internet site http://www.youtube.com/ by the audience. It then came to my attention that within horror films was murder and rape. Second to this was sex and drugs. Therefore we had to make up our own mind as it would be virtually impossible for us to include any of the other 4 aspects in a five minute film. We then asked the same question but with what they don’t like to see and the results showed that they didn’t like to see what they previously liked. This implied to me that the people taking part in my questionnaire were either not taking it serious or just ticking any of the boxes.

So that what was happening in the film was apparent to the audience we took several different shots every time we filmed. These included shots from different angles, with different amount of lighting and in different parts of the room or college. We used cuts of previous parts of the film to represent Lucy’s flashbacks. We also used special effects to make Emily-Jane disappear then re-appear in the room with Lily. Finally we experimented with saturation and colour effects. This lead to the decision that we would change to a three or four toned colour then change it back to its original colour. This caused it to look like a flash and created a spooky effect.

Our film was aimed at teenagers so we used characters of the same age so they were easy to relate to. For example, Lucy being the victim of a bullying problem meant that any teenagers being bullied could relate to her and it may encourage them also to talk to someone. This made the characters easy to understand as they were teenagers suffering real life problems. Although, the older generation who like psychological thrillers may also be classed as our target audience. In my opinion our film was easy to understand all the way through until the end we intentionally set out to confuse people with the twist. We found out that this technique worked when we got audience feedback. The participants said that they thought it was ‘unpredictable’ and a ‘good idea’.

A problem with our film may be the regional accent. Although, there are no regional words used but the pronunciation of words may be different to how others say them. This may lead to a mixture of interpretations with the audience or for them to be confused with what the characters are saying.

When I was planning and researching before the film making process I used the website http://www.blogger.com/. I created an account and posted all my research and planning on the site. We used http://www.google.com/ to find out any information we needed for the film. An example for this is when we were deciding on a certificate. I also posted my poster analysis, the poster I designed, my analysis of a five minute film and all the diary extracts I wrote after days of filming. Apple Mac’s were the computers we were on to do all our planning, research and any other work that was needed. Photoshop was another computer programme which helped us with our other advertising product, our poster. We had several lessons to give us information on how to use this programme and what tools to use for best results.

The video recorder we used was a Sony HDV 1000. A tri-pod was used as a stand for the camera so that it was a still and even shot. To make sure of this I would check the spirit level on the top of the tri-pod and alter the legs until the bubble was central. For our radio trailer we used a H4 zoom recorder. This was easy to use; although we were given a sheet with the instructions on to prevent us making any mistakes.

When editing our film we used software called ‘Final Cut Express’ this was very useful with the production of our film and made it a lot easier for us. Garage Band was a programme we used to add audio clips to the film such as the alarm clock.

All the technology we used was a big attribute to the production of our film, poster, movie trailer and the research and planning we did. I found the website http://www.blogger.com/ difficult as I didn’t know how to make my name visible on the blog’s wall. I used the camera a lot so I found this was the easiest source of equipment for me. I developed my filming skills, using a variety of shots and techniques such as zooming and panning. I also liked to get a number of different shots so that there would definitely be one that we liked and wanted to use. The programmes on the computer played the biggest part on helping us develop our film as they made it possible to add special effects, such as audio clips and change of colours on certain shots. It also let us cut off parts off the shot we didn’t want.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

March 23rd
This was our final day of filming and was used to do the car scenes. This was the most difficult scene to film as it was outside college and included driving a car on a real road.
First, we did a shot of Jade, Sharon and Danielle (the bullies) driving down the road in the car. This was done close up and then from a distance so we could get a better shot of the bully Danielle throwing a bottle out of the car window, aiming for the head of Lucy. We then did these shots so that Lucy could be seen walking down the path at the side of the road. The bottle was then thrown so that it would miss her head, that way we didn’t hurt her.
We then did a shot of Danielle throwing the bottle at Lucy’s head but with the car at a stand still, this was so she could do it softer.
Finally, we did a shot from inside the car with the bully Danielle holding the camera. This was so the audience could see it from her point of view.

Critically evaluating video production by Lucy Davies

For our media product, we wanted to create a mild psychotic thriller that was potentially for a wide audience. Psychological thrillers deliberately use psychological tricks to create tension in the audience by stimulating the imagination of the viewer, as they make up their own minds on what is going to happen. To make maximum use of suspense in our film, we purposely kept the action content to a minimum which was a way that made the audience gripped to the storyline making the overall experience of the film thrilling.
We chose to place our film under the category of psychological thriller as it includes a main character with mental health issues rather than the actor being exposed to physical danger. As a group, we decided to rate our film as a ‘12a’, enabling a large amount of people to actually watch the short film we produced. Another reason why we rated our film as a 12a is that we didn’t have the right equipment and experience to form any scenes of violence or horror, so we decided to produce a film that contained mild swearing and mild scenes of horror to qualify the rating of our film as a 12a. Throughout the production of our film, we enabled ourselves to use the correct set of shots and cuts to enhance the importance of the psychotic effect we wanted to establish for the duration of our film. At the end of our film, we used flashing images of Emily-Jayne standing behind Lucy which was a feature we interpreted to reveal the twist at the end using a psychotic effect. We also used filters and coloured effects with blurs and blurred motions to make some parts of the film more unusual, as we wanted to add things that the audience would not expect. In some places, we used quick cuts from shot to shot to make the scene more frantic, allowing the audience to feel more anxious to what could happen which was a way that built up tension to capture the audience’s attention until the very end of the film. We also used a variety of different shots, including close up shots to emphasise emotions and facial expressions used by the actors and long shots to show the scenery enabling the audience to see where the film is taking place so that they get a better understanding. Mid length shots were used for conversations allowing the audience to feel more involved in the film. We also used full length shots so that the audience could see the characters fully and make up their own opinions of each character from their appearance. (This technique of letting the audience make their own decisions was an idea I wanted to incorporate from the 5 minute film I analysed, as it makes the revealing of the twist more dramatic). The character Emily-Jayne that played the part of a ghost wore the same clothing throughout the film implying that there could be something mysterious about her. The costumes of the characters became a problem during the film as the dress we used for Emily-Jayne was borrowed from the performing arts section of college and it got lost after we had used it several times so we had to improvise on set. Also, we used two different jumpers for Lucy, and as both characters had to film in their own time we could only do short scenes so we got confused which jumpers were needed for each shot.
Continuity editing is a technique used to link a sequence together using a variety of different shots. This makes a scene more interesting as it enables the audience to see a range of shots that they can simply follow without confusion. Continuity editing was used throughout our film for conversations and walking sequences through doors and corridors etc. We used this technique to make the film flow more appropriately, allowing the audience to get a better understanding of what the film is about without getting confused, especially for the twist at the end. However, some parts of the film where we wanted to use continuity editing was impossible as some of the scenes we filmed didn’t have enough different shots to make the sequence flow appropriately. Also, the lighting and sounding from shot to shot was different which made it difficult to make the scene continue. An example of this is when both main actresses were in the canteen. It was difficult to make the scene continue with a variety of different shots as we simply didn’t have enough shots. Nevertheless, in some parts of our filming we did the same shot twice but made the actress do it in different emotions to enable us to have more variety when editing. We also did the same shot in close ups and long shots so that we could chose which was better for the overall scene. When filming, we did have an advantage as we were able to use actors from performing arts which made the filming part more professional, but this caused problems as we had to film in our breaks at college and their breaks which left us little time to edit.
In addition, we used several jump cuts to compress a number of shots into a quick scene. An example of using jump cuts in our film was the opening sequence when our actress (Lily) was getting ready for college, to create a more frantic scene. This technique emphasises a specific activity that the character is acting out, which is a way of creating suspense to capture the audience’s attention. We also used dissolves and fades to pass a passage of time and to simply link different scenes together without immediately cutting from scene to scene.
Uses and gratification (Richard Dyers Theory of entertainment) is an approach that highlights why people enjoy watching films and the pleasure they get from them. This can be summarised from the entertainment value of the film, the information that it provides for the audience, specific role models that the audience may find inspiring and the socialisation factor that comes from watching a film. In my opinion, our film is entertaining as it captures the audience’s attention throughout the film until the twist at the end. As Emily-Jayne is wearing old fashioned clothing and comes across as an outsider, the audience are anxious to see why this appearance was used for this character, which is a way of gradually building tension. Our film is also educational as it provides information about schizophrenia and how it can affect people. Even though our film comes across as dramatic, it is still true to life making the audience learn about situations that schizophrenics may be in. Transparency can make certain viewers want to watch our film as they may be able to relate own experiences of knowing people with schizophrenia or even being a suffer themselves of schizophrenia , enabling the audience to share their own emotions towards the film. Furthermore, all films create socialisation as any person can have their own opinion on a film which is another reason to why people may watch it.
From the 5 minute film I analysed (‘LOVEFIELDS’), the main way that tension was built was by the music used and the fact that the director led the audience to believe the male in the film raped and killed the woman, making the revealing of the twist more unexpected. In addition, the use of close ups were used in this short film to express emotions more clearly, making the overall experience of watching the film more thrilling, as it involves the audience. This is a technique we used in our film, by doing close up shots of Lucy’s face when she was distressed etc to make it more direct to the viewer. In our film, we led the audience to believe that Lucy was an ordinary girl that was getting bullied, leaving any action content to a minimum to keep the audience gripped throughout. This was a technique I wanted to include in our film, as the opening sequence to ‘LOVEFIELDS’ was very slow, however it made me anxious to see what was going to happen. I believe that our film gave no implications to what the ending could be about like ‘LOVEFIELDS’.
To advertise our film, we used a radio trailer that included appropriate information to inform the audience. With any trailer, to get the maximum effect of advertising a film to the viewers, it is vital that specific techniques and features are incorporated to make the audience want to see the film. This is a DVD trailer of the film ‘The Sixth Sense’. Before watching this trailer, I was intrigued to see what techniques were used to persuade the audience to watch the film and the music and script included, in order for me to take ideas and use them in our own radio trailer.

Immediately, the audience is captured by the scene of the accident and the fact that the young boy is implying that he can see a dead woman next to his window. The audience’s attention is now focused on the young boy, making them predict what the film could be about. We used this technique in our trailer, as we wanted the listeners to make their own minds up on what the film could be about, making the twist at the end less obvious. We wanted the listeners to be left in suspense after listening to the trailer, which was a technique used in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer. We did this by using an extremely brief description of the film and adding extracts of the film to leave the audience wanting more. Both trailers had their own way of building tension by using psychotic effects. In our radio trailer, we wanted to include a piano for the background music to create a ghostly effect. Both Shelley and I spoke for the audio to portray that a group of girls were chanting like the bullies in the film, or Lily and Emily-Jayne were talking simultaneously to show their connection with each other. An eerie effect was created in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer by using thrilling music and extracts from the film such as ‘I see dead people’. Also, a deep male voice only said the title of the film and the tagline being ‘Not every gift is a blessing’ which emphasised these two features. In our film poster, we included a tagline 'chasing her ghost...' to leave the audience in suspense and by copy and pasting it, it gives the implication that someone has repeatedly written it down in frustration (Highlighting mental health issues). Also in the poster, the title is the biggest piece of text so the audience won't get confused between the tagline and the title. We thought it would be a good idea to smudge all the text used on the poster to create a ghostly effect that we have used throughout the design on the poster. Furthermore, putting the rating of the film on the poster was a vital piece of information that needed to be added so that the audience knew what age it was suitable for, which is something ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer didn’t include.

To begin with, as a group we chose images that we thought were suitable to use for a film poster. We thought it was vital that both main characters were used in the poster, so that the audience have a better idea of who to expect in the film. This is why a large image of Lily's face and a figure of Laura-Jane is used, including their names at the bottom of the poster enabling the audience to recognise who they are. Cleverly, in ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer, it included five star ratings and critics’ opinions that may make the audience want to watch the film. We wanted to include this in our radio trailer, but we thought it may be inappropriate to the script. However, ‘The Sixth Sense’ trailer highlighted the main actor ‘Bruce Willis’, so we decided to include the actors names in our radio trailer, as we did in the poster, as this could also persuade the audience to watch the film if they knew the actor or actors from previous films they have seen them in. To continue with the eerie effect, we wanted Emily-Jayne to be in the background, distorted, so that the audience were under the impression that she could be a ghost. Influenced by the film poster I analysed, we decided to slightly blur her face like the young girl was in the ‘Uninvited’ poster as it created some sort of mystery.




For our audience feedback, I produced a number of questions to get the right amount of advice to make improvements on our film. Some of the positive responses enabled us, as a group, to feel good about our film, and also leave things in that we may have taken out. We did receive criticism which was that the pace of the film at the beginning could have been quicker, so by improving this, we shortened walking sequences and long conversations to make the film more entertaining for the audience. We were also told to add more music to our film, so we choice a piece of music that we wanted to use as our theme tune from a college band ‘My Friends in Vegas’. We also added music from Garageband to build tension and make scenes more interesting to watch. One member of the audience said how they worked out the ending which was disappointing; however, no one else seemed to know what was coming so we decided to leave the film from the majority of people’s opinions. Another member of the audience mentioned how the film didn’t flow in some parts as there were editing brakes, so we solved this by finishing the film fully and by adding fades and dissolves to link scenes together.
After asking the question, ‘Do you think the rating of a 12a was right for the film?’ we had positive responses reassuring us that we made the right decision to class the film as a 12a. One of the viewers stated how this was a suitable age rating as anyone younger may not be able to understand the twist at the end, even though the film wasn’t really scary or contained bad language.
We decided to ask people of our own age to give feedback on our film as this was our main target audience. By using the main actress we did (both actresses were of a similar age to our target audience), this enabled our target audience to relate themselves to the film more. From our audience feedback, we were pleased with the overall outcome, and the fact the audience understood our story and thought that the characters were believable. This made our final stages of editing easier as we had little changes to make to our film.
The most important piece of technology that we used was most definitely the internet. This enabled us to use http://www.blogger.com/ so we could sort out all our work on from media and share it with each other. Also, by using http://www.youtube.com/ it gave us inspiration for radio trailer ideas and film poster ideas from http://www.impawards.co.uk/. To create the poster for our film 'The Lost Hart', we used Adobe Photoshop, enabling us to use effects and images of our choice. This made our overall poster look more professional and more likely to be used for a large Hollywood production company if this was possible. In our film, we also used Garageband to add sound effects and music that was appropriate for each scene. We added non-diegectic sounds, such as the alarm clock at the beginning of the film, and also background noises of people murmuring to make shot to shots in the canteen continue.
We used a zoom H4 recorder to make our radio trailer, and then added the speech onto Garageband to create a professional trailer that could potentially be used on a real radio station for advertisement. To edit our film, we used final cut express on an Apple Mac computer which was an easy way to produce the film and add effects to make the film more impressive. Our final piece of equipment we used was the Sony HDV 1000 to film our movie and a tri-pod to stand the camera on and get steady shots, and the DV 1000 to add all the clips we filmed to the computer so we were able to edit it. Both pieces of equipment were easy to use; however, the camera was not always reliable as the battery ran out several times during filming which lost our group a lot of time.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

On March 2nd we did the classroom shot of Lucy entering the room with Emily-Jane to speak to their teacher Simon about the bullying. We started with the conversation between the two but with the camera facing Simon. We then did the same with Lucy, although we did it more than once as we needed to capture Lucy doing a variety of emotions and reactions within the conversation. We also needed to do this show with and without Emily-Jane to show in the film that she isn't really there and we need several different angles of the shot.
Finally, the shot of the bullies for another scene was done using panning. It panned across the faces of the bullies whilst they all made a comment towards Lucy and the way she's talking to herself. We did this shot with Emily-Jane there talking to her and then again without Emily-Jane there and Lucy talking to herself.

Diary Extract by Shelley Brookes

On the 10th February we did a shot at college of Lucy putting on her jumper. This was due to the fact she had two different jumpers on in scenes next to each other. Therefore we decided to do this shot to go in the middle, showing that she has changed jumpers.
We then did a shot of Emily-Jane and Lucy entering the classroom for the scene with the teacher Julie. This was being re-done as the first copy we did of this shot got filmed over. We used members of our media class to act as the class on the film.

Critically Evaluating my Video Production By Matthew Helliwell

Continuity is an editing technique that has to be observed and measured at all times to avoid irregularity in the scene. We generally stuck to continuity to make the production flow from scene to scene an example is when Lucy moves from corridors into a classroom. If continuity isn’t observed in shots like these then we would get an irregular passage of movement. I edit to make sure we stuck to these parameters, but also added jump cuts to keep the viewer from getting bored. The benefits of this are to make a very long shot shorter like in the bathroom scene where Lucy is seen brushing her teeth I split the shot and took bits out so she darted around the bathroom. I hoped to create a rushed effect with these jump cuts but as our films final cut was too long by a substantial amount of time. I had to trim down shots that wern't necessary so I took a lot of shots out of the bathroom. But there are still examples of jump cuts creating a rushed effect throughout the beginning. You can see this clearly by looking at the frame by frame screenshots between the shots.

Here we can see Lucy Casken standing at her

wardrobe as she has just removed a jumper from it.

And in the next frame we can see Lucy Casken in a different location putting the jumper on.

And a few frames later we see her down the stairs.

And then in the kitchen getting breakfast.

This scene purposely breaches basic continuity laws by using jump cuts to rush Lucy's morning routine. It also stops camera shots dragging out and possibly boring the viewer. I like jump cuts and I use them frequently in our film. I got the idea for including jump cuts by doing research into films that use them, such as Notting Hill. I also analyzed a short film produced by other A level students called "The Wrong Turn." This film included jump cuts throughout. Which made me feel confident in using them, because if other A level students could use them and make them work well using I movie editing software. Our group certainly could make it work using Final Cut Express.

If we had to categorise our film to a certain genre I think psychological thriller would be adequate enough as our films themes relate to other films in that category. A major theme of psychological thrillers are characters trying to find out what is real and what’s not which poses a strong connection with the character Emily-Jayne. With Lucy Caskan trying to find out who she really is kind of like how David Fincher tries to make the narrator from Fight Club find out who he is. Which I reference in my film ever so slightly. As the camera pans left to right and shows the bullies speaking about Lucy there is a slight flash of Emily-Jayne Hart stood there next to Lucy Caskan. This idea was brought upon by Brad Pitts emergence to the narrators life in Fight Club. You can see sharp quick flashes of Brad Pitt at the beginning of the film as The Narrator deals with psychological problems. An example of this is in this video taken from youtube you can see the quick flash around the 17 second mark. [Tyler Durden Flash]

Blink and you miss it. You can see it clearly in these screenshots.

This is the workplace around the 16 second mark.

And now we can clearly see Tyler Durden stood in the workplace. This is to show the narrators mentally fragile state of mind. Which I wanted to show in our film.

I love the film and liked the idea of using ideas that stemmed from it. Also in the film especially towards the end there are a lot of brightness sweeps. I got this idea from the TV show Prison Break although they tend to invert the colours I still got the idea from there. The editing I hope provides some kind of enjoyment for the audience. The editing I think keeps the film moving and avoids it from getting a little bit slow. Other than editing techniques I think using actresses who act regularly helps make the film more appealing and real. Anyone with a love for films such as Fight Club, Se7en, the Uninvited and other thrillers would appeal to our film as it contains attributes of typical thrillers as well as attributes that may not often be associated with thrillers. Its always good to have something new and to keep the viewers guessing, like in Se7en. I don’t think we achieved this as well as I would’ve hoped to in our film. In places I am very disappointed with the film, but from the camera shots I got I think I managed to edit it to the best it could be. In the dining scene where Lucy buys two coffees and they sit down and have a conversation that was very awkward to edit and get something decent as members of the group had just filmed one shot throughout the whole conversation which was a substantial amount of time. So to ensure the viewer did not get bored I had to adjust the wire frame of the shot and stretch it so that it did a close up onto Lilly’s face. I think I got the best possible out of that situation because it would’ve been terrible to leave it as one long shot. I also went back and filmed a little bit more which wasn’t filmed with the only available actress and tried to make the scene as good as it could be. As for transitions I don’t really like using them because I think they look tacky. So I just dimmed the contrast to fade out at the key frames I wanted. I did this because I could make it more personalised than a set transition. Editing is a way of making things personal, I made the most of Fast cutting, slow cutting, continuity editing, intentional jump cuts and effects that were available to me. I used a lot of blurs and motion blur to put across the main characters confused state of mind. In the flashback we also see a colour change so the viewer knows it is a flashback. From an audio perspective I added an alarm tone for when the alarm goes off. An equalisation filter also helped me get around a problem of hubbub in the cafeteria. Although I couldn't reduce it fully I took most of the bass out and it did make a positive difference. I also added audio effects such as reverberation and delay on some audio tracks I found it very effective on voice to create a sense of confusion.

As a finished product. Our film poster, radio trailer and film itself produce an all together spooky, confusion filled experience. Which I think we all wanted that effect. First of all our poster is very dark, featuring eerie colours such as blacks and greys with speckles of light. This is sure to give a spooky, eerie feel to anyone who looks at the poster. The tag line which I created ‘Chasing her ghost,’ also gives a spooky sense, it is duplicated on the background to make it stand out yet still come second to the title and actors names. I think this is a very effective poster in applying a theme of confusion to the film.


The radio trailer also does this but I think it was more difficult to portray these themes just through sound. The eerie delicate piano piece underlying the speech is used to draw the listener in. As a package the radio trailer and poster both match the prospects of the film, an eerie psychological thriller. My poster draws resemblance to the poster from the film A Beautiful Mind, as it has Emily Jayne Hart stood in the background slightly faded out, whereas A Beautiful Minds poster has a series of blurred colours and then a silhouette of a person in the background. This was a good idea and I’m glad I stumbled across the poster and took ideas from it.

In filming I was sure to film scenes in two emotional moods so when I came to edit I could choose which looked best. So we made the actresses go through some lines in a sad mood and an angry mood. You can see this at the end when Lucy shouts at the teacher ‘She was my friend I knew her,’ later on there is a flashback and she says the same words in a sad tone. From this I tried to get the view that in her own head she sounds different and she feels different so that the viewer could feel her confusion. But I think fast editing in the flashback scene stops the viewer noticing this as much as I’d like the viewer to. To try and get the most out of the film and portray the characters to the audience I spent time planning before filming, trying to work out a way to build a love able character that people get attached to, I found this hard to do in just a few minutes but tried as it is very important. In the end I think it depends upon the audiences willingness to accept a new character. I tried using sympathy to try and make Lucy connect with the audience through her bullying as bullying is a trouble a lot of teenagers go through. Trying to make teenagers sympathise was a good choice as our target audience is mainly teenagers going onto older adults who like psychological thrillers or thrillers in general.

After taking part in our audience feedback which can be viewed here.
[The Lost Hart Audience Feedback]
We were able to find out what other people thought of the film and we could see if we succeeded in getting across our themes to the audience. At the time we let people watch the film to judge, It was only half way through, we did this so that we could retrieve criticism and then change the film accordingly.
In our audience feedback we got praise for using real actors we also got a lot of praise for editing techniques like the brightness and contrast flashes, one viewer said it made the film interesting and another said that was how the twist was shown. From criticism we found out that we needed more music in parts where there were little or no dialogue. So I got a song off garage band to use as a song off the radio in the car. Other songs in the film were cut from a song that my friends band wrote and i thought it fit the themes well. The statistics of the audience feedback suggest that we had particularly good reviews with 3 out of 5 stars a 4 and a 4.5, we were very impressed with that.

During research and planning the vital piece of technology was the internet and mainly the blog we created. This allowed us to all share everything we had together in our group. It solved a great deal of problems including when I forgot the script one day, we were able to print it off as it was on the internet and accessible to everyone. The most important piece of technology for me personally was using the editing software Final Cut express.I found it easy to use and just brilliant. A lot more flexible with cuts and effects. Plus having multiple video and audio tracks helped the creativeness of the film and allowed us to experiment more than last year where we used I-movie. As well as Final Cut I used garage band for audio samples like the alarm clock which was very useful. To record sound for radio trailer we used a zoom H4 recorder which is very simple and easy to use. To record video, we used a Sony HDV 1000. I found that the camera was very good but pulling focus and setting a shallow focus was rather difficult. This was a disappointing feature as it is commonly used in all films.


Technology at the most of the times was very helpful and reliable although we did have certain problems. A few times we got a camera out and the battery wasn’t charged which was a big problem when we were filming exterior locations. As well as battery problems we got the camera out and when we filmed the shots were not use able due to something not being cleaned correctly. The only problem I had with any other technology was the editing software final cut closing unexpectedly and I lost hours worth of work because of that which was devastating.

To conclude we thought it was best to stick to certain rules and obligations and not stray too far from the genre themes. This makes it easier for the audience to understand our film. Which from our audience feedback they mostly did. Which is a plus. Technology helped us greatly as personally I didn’t fancy splicing film tape to edit each shot. I think we made the film the right way.

Organisation On Set By Matthew Helliwell

Personally I think that being organised when you come to filming is crucial to obtaining good results. It ensures that filming takes minimum time which is important for everyone.

To be organised whilst on set I obtained a clipboard from which I could pin the script and the shooting script plus any other additional notes which contained ideas that I wanted to put into consideration when filming came.

This is the script which was pinned to the clipboard for reference when actors forgot words or just for general guidence. As you can see part are highlighted for which lines the actors are reading in the scene we were filming.

And this is the shooting script that was also attached to the clipboard. This is always to be refrered to and each scene is sectioned off by a different shade of grey. Alspo each scene is numbered for quick reference to other members of the group. Each shot is described very accurately so that we can carry out the shots and make things easier for all of us.

This is the outcome. Script on the top and shooting script on the bottom because we used the script more than the shooting script. It is a lot easier than having a lot of sheets in your hands.

Radio Trailer By Lucy Davies Final with ideas from the whole group

This is our radio trailer for our 5 minute film. I wanted to include piano in the background to create a ghostly effect. Both me and Shelley spoke for the audio to portray that two girls were chanting like the bullies in the film, or Lily and Emily-jayne were talking simultaneously. We also added delays and echos to make the ghostly effect more dramatic. We included appropriate information to inform the audience of the characters and the time it will be on the television.

Final Poster Created by Hayley Outhwaite with ideas from the whole group

This is our final poster of which we used ideas from our own individual posters and collaborated them together in order to manufacture this final poster.

Radio Trailer Created by Lucy Davies with help from group (changes to be made)

This is the first draft of our trailer for the 5 minute film we created. Unfortunately, the trailer lasts 22 seconds which is too short so there are changes to be made. I am wanting to do this by adding another audio of Lily saying 'Emily-Jayne Hart' and extending it by making bigger gaps between each audio part with the music playing continuously in the background.

Characters by Shelley Brookes

Laura-Jane

Lily Thomas

My Poster by Shelley Brookes

This is the poster i designed for our film. I used this background to imply confusion as it uses a range of monochrome colors. I then used a shot of Emily-Jane and Lucy sat down together. I made Emily-Jane in black and white and left Lucy in the normal color but decreased the lightness to make it more dull giving a negative affect and making the audience think they aren't from the same time. I then put a picture of Lucy in the top right corner as she is the main character and also she appears to have a look of shock or horror on her face and made the image look worn so it puts across it is an old photo. This should make the audience think it is a horror film. The certificate of the film is placed in the bottom corner to inform people on how old they must be to watch it and to the left of this is the names of the two main characters over the shot of them sat down. Finally, I put the name of the film central and in the largest font so that it catches attention as this is important. Then underneath in slightly smaller writing I put a tag line to go with the name.

Poster Design By Lucy Davies

To create this poster for our film 'The Lost Hart', I used Adobe photoshop, enabling me to use effects and images of my choice. To begin with, as a group we chose images that we thought were suitable for all of us to use in the poster. I thought it was vital that both main characters were used in the poster, so that the audience have a better idea of who to expect in the film. This is why I used a large image of Lily's face and a figure of Laura-Jane, including their names at the bottom of the poster enabling the audience to recognise who they are. If this was a Hollywood film poster, specific A-listed actors could influence people to go watch the film, which is why their faces are used. I wanted Emily-Jayne to be in the background, distorted, so that the audience were under the impression that she could be a ghost. Influenced by the film poster I analysed, I decided to slightly blur her face like the young girl was in the Uninvited poster as it created some sort of mystery.

I also included a tagline 'chasing her ghost...' to leave the audience in suspense, and by copy and pasting it, it gives the implication that someone has repeatedly written it down in frustration.

The background I used highlights the main parts of the poster making the audience focus on specific aspects. The title is the biggest piece of text on the poster so the audience won't get confused between the tagline and the title. I also wanted to smudge all the text used on the poster to create a ghostly effect that I have used throughout the design on the poster.

Furthermore, putting the rating of the film on the poster was a vital piece of information that needed to be added so that the audience knew what age it was suitable for.

My Film Poster By Matthew Helliwell

This is the poster I have made for our film, The Lost Hart in adobe photoshop.

I decided to include the two main characters Emily Jayne Hart and Lucy Caskan in the poster. Most importantly their appearances in the poster is very different to in the film. Lucy's face is half lit as I have burned the other half so her face is half lit, this could give her the look of having two sides to her and Emily-Jayne is brightly lit and also I created a ghostly feel to her appearance by scorching marks into her dress to make it seem as though light is flowing through her easily, it gives her the look of being semi transparent. Also I increased the brightness of her skin colour to make her seem more pale and bright. More ghostly and more eerie. The background I used is of a broken mirror, and the frame is very rusty. I tried to symbolize the difference in their characters through colours, Lucy Caskans face is cast in a dark shadow whereas Emily-Jayne's face is shrouded in bright light, which also gives a ghostly feel. Because of these colours I also wrote the names of the actors in contrasting colours to contrast the difference in the characters. The title of the film is written in Copperplate, because I wanted a plain look to the writing, but I added a shadow effect on the last word Hart, spelled according to Emily-Jaynes last name but is a play on the word heart. The tagline "Chasing her ghost" is written in Edwardian handwriting like Emily-Jaynes Attire I also made the last word "Ghost," Overlap into Emily-Jaynes body.

My Influence came from the poster for the film A Beautiful mind, where a shadow is seen in the background amongst a blur of colours. The film poster draws attention to the main character played by Russel Crowe who also has a slight shadow covering half of his face.

To conclude, what I wanted to achieve with this poster is the contrast between the two characters. I achieved this by contrasting the colours wrapping around them I also wanted to give Emily-Jayne a ghostly feel. I think I achieved both of these things.

My film poster by Hayley Outhwaite

This is my poster that I have designed for our film 'The lost Hart.' I chose to include both the main characters Emily-Jayne and Lucy Casken on my poster as they are the main focus of the film. The image that I decided to use for the background of my poster is a black and white patterned one which I felt added an eerie feel to my poster.

The section of my poster that I feel is the most effective is the highlighted area surrounding Emily-Jayne. The reason I chose to use this effect is because as Emily-Jayne is in fact Lucy's imaginary friend, the light behind her is a a good indication to the audience that there is something special about this character.

Even though the lettering of the title on my poster is set in the same colours as the background that I have used, black and white, I still feel that it stands out due to the fact that I have given the letters a bold outline and also made the letters as white as they could possibly go in order to make them stand out even more.

Extra Poster Research By Matthew Helliwell

A Beautiful Mind is a film, like ours, which uses a form of schizophrenia as a topic. Early in the film John forbes Nash (the main character) contracts paranoid schizophrenia early on in the movie and this interferes with his life and his family. Nash also refuses to take his medication.

These are similarities to our movie where our film uses a form of schitzophrenia, but instead of refusing to take her medication, Lucy simply forgets to take them. We also see how it affects the people around her, most importantly her mother.

The poster for this movie is even more relavent to our film because the lighting used on Russel Crowes face is darkened on one side. This shows us that there is something wrong with him or there are maybe two sides to this person. Also i like the effect of the shadow seen in the background amist of a blur of colours, this would be a great affect to use for our film poster as the character Emily-Jayne is not real and a figment of Lucy's mind, therefore could be represented by a shadow or something else that is not whole.

Analysis of a film poster By Lucy Davies

This is a film poster of 'The Uninvited' I chose to anaylise this poster as we based our 5 minute film on this specifically. The eerie effect created by the woman looking through the window leaves the audience in suspence as the figure doesn't show a face. Furhtermore, the woman looking through the window implies that she isn't welcome, hence the title 'The Uninvited'. This also links with the tag line 'fear moves in', suggesting that the uninvited guest maybe the 'fear' that enters whatever is behind the window. The main title is the largest piece of text on the poster. This makes it stand out from the other texts, also making it obvious what the title is for the audience. Even though the title is the prime focus, 'from the producers of The Ring and Disturbia' is centered in the poster, which is a good advertising skill to make the audience want to go see the film. This is because there is no 'star actors' or reviews to persuade the audience and by showing pervious successful films, this could imply that this film is just as good because the same producers were used. Other relevant information is based at the bottom of the poster in white, but this isn't exposed as much as the title, tagline, producers or the release month (January). Moreover, the font used creates a ghostly effect, which continues with the eeriness throughout the whole poster.
No colour is used at all in this poster, however, this is cleverly done to produce a cold atmosphere. The trees in the background show seclusion, which also links in with the old worn out window suggesting that this could be a cabin etc isolated in a forest so no one can escape the 'fear'.

Poster analysis By Hayley Outhwaite

This is a poster of the film Ghost. When i first saw this poster my immediate impression was that this film was about ghosts and other spiritual factors. By the way the surrounding area of the two actors in this poster is highlighted this links in with the title of this film 'ghost' as when i initially think of a ghost i think of bright lights. The tag line 'believe' also links in with the title of the film as not many people believe in ghosts so i get the impression that this film is also going to be based upon the belief in ghosts and maybe trying to get people to change their views on spiritual aspects such as ghosts.

This film relates to our film 'The lost Hart' as our film too incorporates spiritual factors as one of the main characters 'Emily-Jayne' turns out to be a figure of Lucy Caskcan's imagination and is in fact a ghost.

The way the male actor in this film is kissing the females neck signifies that these two actors are in a passionate relationship of which ties in with the sentence above the title on the poster 'before Sam died he told Molly he would love and protect her forever.' This sentence also tells the audience a lot about the two actors such as the fact they are in a relationship and that the male actor obviously loves his partner very much, however the way it says he will 'protect' her forever gets the audience thinking that maybe something bad happens in the film that he has to protect her from.

All in all I feel that even though this poster is not very complex it tells a lot about the film and this is what i want our poster to be like.

Poster Analysis by Shelley Brookes

This is a poster for the movie ‘Frozen’. It has a dull setting implying cold, horrible weather. Which creates a frozen atmosphere and a negative effect on the audience. The writing also gives a cold impression as it is written in white which implys ice. Also, the title is in the biggest writing as it is the most important part, the reviews are slightly smaller because they’re less important and finally the writing at the bottom, for example the producer, is small as it isn’t that important to the audience.
The way it shows the person trying to stop himself from falling by holding on to the ski lift to stop him from falling. This will cause the audience to have a sense of fear, implying this film is a horror. Also it is emphasised by the way the sky behind them is the only light part to make this more clear.
A persuasive feature here is the quotes from the newspapers because it gives the reader an ideao n what the films about and is likely to make them want to see it.