Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

This process has taught us many things. Firstly, we have learnt how to edit the clips into a full opening sequence in a program that was not necessarily familiar to us. Furthermore, handling the camera boosted our technical skills by very much being forced to 'learn on the job'. Any problems that arose only made us more confident in solving them next time. By having hands-on, practical use with the camera for a long period of time, we developed our camera angles by learning the positioning of different shots.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Once finished filming we used many online/computer technologies such as photoshop, and youtube. While using these sites we had to upload what we'd taken a picture of or filmed and cut it down to the size we needed. While on photoshop we had to crop and then reserve the image so that it would fit correctly onto our blog and then while on youtube we had to convert videos to quicktime, and then upload to youtube, this process took a while but once on youtube it meant copying and sharing our videos for feedback was a lot easier. Two other computer technologies we used were garage band and itunes. On garage band we found background music that we cut down and distorted to fit with our opening scene, and our main song 'teddy bears picnic' we found on youtube and therefore had to convert to mp3 to work with itunes which we then copied onto final cut pro which was the main editing process for our film.

We used the main filming camera to film only our opening scene, as it had the best quality however while using the camera was a useful technology, we did experience some problems during the filming process. On our first day of shooting, after filming the first main sequence, we discovered that is was in fact taking pictures not video clips. This of course did not help our very time-sensitive situation. These shots had to be re-filmed. After this, later that day, the camera ran our of battery which of course stunted the whole plan for that day. As a result of this, we made arrangements to reschedule for a different day. All of these factors held us up but we managed to be flexible and organised in solving these issues. Dispite the faults mentioned, the camera was easy to use, playback, monitor and transfer clips onto the computer afterwards for editing.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For our film opening and whole media product we have decided that the audience we feel would enjoy our film would be young adults from the ages of 17- 25.
This is because, the film is based on a family going for a picnic in the woods on a nice day which the audience can relate to and put themselves in the characters shoes.
Also we did some research and from what we found out, young adults from the ages of 17- 20 tend to like watching thrillers more than any other film. Therefore we thought that we would aim our film for that age group because they are more likely to go to the cinema and watch it rather than the older generation who wouldn't go to the cinema or the younger generation who are too young to watch it and wouldn't have money to go and watch it.
Therefore we feel that choosing young adults as the audience for our film will promote our film greatly and give us good views on it.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Voice Recorder >>

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

Screen Gems is an American movie production company founded as a film studio in 1999 meaning it's quite modern, and well known. We feel this company would be great for our film to work with as because it's so modern it matches the modern theme of our film making it much more realistic for our audience. This film company would also be great to work with our film as they've previously distributed thriller films which are extremely similar ours. Such as 'When A Stranger Calls'. this company however is extremely well known within America and we have worries that our film would do much better in England than the USA. However we are willing to take the risk and distribute our film with this company. This is because the films that they've recently distributed such as 'Underworld' and 'The Vow' have done extremely well across the world, and not just in one particular country.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

One of the main social groups within our film is 'Family'. We've represented a typical day family as a mother, father and young child. We've chosen this as we feel this is how our target audience see a family now a days, and therefore we wanted it to relate to them as much as we could. One of the main reasons why we've chosen to include main characters within a family is because we noticed that thriller/horror films we've researched don't really include any meaning it would be a new type of storyline compared to any other film. The family within our film seem very tight and together meaning that when the young girl does go missing this makes the scene even more tense and intriguing for the young audience who'll be watching.

the family to the right is the family from 'Insidious' another film much like ours, we've been looking back to this film for inspiration throughout and therefore some things are very similar. This however masks us know that our film would most likely be as successful as theirs. The only problem would be that the audience may not have like the film 'insidious' and therefore not watch another film like it.

In what way does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of a real media product?

Comparing our film to another similar helped us to develop understanding of our genre, we decided to use the same colour scheme as we felt this provided the audience with enough clues to show the type of genre they'd be watching. We felt this was needed to match the colour scheme to the style of font. They contrasted very well we thought and that this helped the audience again gain understanding with the type of film they'd be watching. The two shots were also on the screen for a similar amount of time. We decided to do this as the film we're comparing ours to 'When A Stranger Calls' is very popular and gained a lot of views at the box office, showing that the film was obviously filmed well, and the shots were on for an appropriate amount of time letting the audience read the titles etc. We felt making our font style similar overall added more understanding to the film and shown the audience that the film wasn't going to be a comedy/romance it straight away we feel gave them the idea that it was going to be some sort of thriller or horror without giving too much away, leaving suspense. - Sadie

With the title of the film we decided to use the same font as we did with the titles. We kept the back ground black which is also the same as our other titles, we done this because in the opening sequence of "When a stranger calls" they have kept their titles the same and the back grounds, we felt that this would be a good similar technique to use because it makes the film look more professional and keeps the film opening more intriguing, therefore the audience will be more entertained and want to watch on to see what happens. Also we have made our font blurred because we wanted to make it look more effective, also we thought that it would create the connotation that something bad is going to happen. However, the blurred effect could show to the audience that because the title is blurred and twisted then that could be an indication that the film is also Twisted. - Jade.

We chose to have our film set in the woods as we felt this would show the audience how one place can be represented in different ways depending on the weather/editing/characters involved. E.g. when the witch is around in each scene the shot goes slightly blurred and the colour distorts making it seems much more spooky, this happens also in the 'When A Stranger Calls' opening scene as when the male character is shown weird sound effects are used to show that something in the shot is not quite as it seems, the shot is also much darker when he is around making it seem again much more spooky and confusing for the audience. We also used the woods as we felt it matches up to the 'When A Stranger Calls' setting, this is because a fairground is where a family would visit to enjoy time together, much like the setting we've chosen. The woods we felt also represented our genre perfectly, as its wide spaced and a place where someone could easily get lost but be hard to find, this goes perfectly with the storyline of our film, and also goes along with usual conventions of a thriller/horror film (a place where you should feel safe, but never know whats going to happen!). - Sadie

In these screenshots we have noticed that in the film "when a stranger calls" the bad guy is in the dark so that the audience can not make out what he looks like which will keep them in suspense. We also noticed that the good guys are in colour and you can always see who they are. Because of this we thought that we would introduce our good characters in full colour so that the audience can get the idea that the characters are good. In "When a stranger calls" the bad guy is alone and with a dog, which we noticed that in thriller type films the bad guy is usually alone because he is plotting his attack. With our witch we have filmed her feet and kept her alone because we thought that the audience will want to watch on as they will want to know who she is, what she looks like and what she is going to do tho the happy family. We found that introducing the characters in this way was similar to the way the film opening of "When a stranger calls" and therefore would appear much more as a thriller based genre rather than any other film. - Jade.

Like many horror/thriller films we've decided to distort the scenes where the main 'scary' character is around, this makes it clear to the audience that they're the witch/whatever the bad character is. distorting the sound also makes it seem much more like a thriller as it increases intensity fro the audience keeping them on the edge of their seat. Throughout the whole film we've made sure that the continuity of it fits well and makes sense. At some points however we realised that the filming wasn't in the correct order making the film confusing so we had to re edit it to make it make sense, this again made the intensity much stronger as the film flowed quite quickly. We also slowed down some of the scenes to not only make it fit the music appropriately but to also make it drag, making it seem like the environment we were filming in was much bigger than it actually was. - Sadie

JADE NEED TO WRITE THIS PART! :)

Our use of costume and props was thought out carefully. The key prop of the teddy bear conveys innocence of childhood. However in our film, the meaning of childhood is twisted into something sinister and this matches the dark theme of the narrative. In terms of the use of costume, the actress playing the witch is dressed in a full black outfit that hides her identity and combined with the little girls red coat, this draws connotations of danger, death and despair.Another prop we used was of course the picnic itself, this consisted of a tea set and a mat complete with a wicker basket. Just like the teddy bear, we wanted to convey innocence so the audience would sympathise with the character of the young girl and that would make it more frightening when trouble comes along. This contrast is something we observed in other thriller films and took it on a technique of our own. - Kat

Construction-Final

CONTINUITY

13/03/12

We've almost finished editing the film, we're filming a few more shots which will be added in due course.

Editing 06/03/12

Feed Back!

23 year old Female:
I think this is a good storyline and would really like to see it in the cinema as I feel it would be a real scary movie. No goar, no blood but it still keeps your heart pumping fast. I feel a movie like this would recieve a good audience because The Woman In Black has just done so well.

SHOT LIST

1. Ident
2. Titles
3. Medium shot of the itches foot - tracking her.
4. Cut to point of view of the witch, from behind the tree - family walk in from the left.
5. Young girl drops bear, edit goes into slow motion (black and white, blurred shot tracking the family).
6. Medium shot of the family setting up the picnic.
7. Close up of the young girls face when she realises that the bear has gone missing.
8. Girl in focus, in foreground, parents out of focus in the background - girl runs past camera.
9. Cut to girl running - the camera tracks alongside her, with some shots of the setting surrounding her in between.
10. Cut to close up of the witches feet.
11. Tilt shot going up to reveal further identity of the witch.
12. Cut back to the parents running in the same previous surroundings as the girl was running.
13. Sharp cut, of a simultaneous snatch between the witch and young girl - who are both snatching for the bear.
14. Over the shoulder shot of the back of the witches head, and the young girls reaction - camera pans round to reveal the witches face.
15. Parents come to the same position as we previous seen the young girl and witch.
16. Black screen, with the words 'THE NEXT DAY...'.
17. Point of view shot of the witch behind the tree (as per beginning). The detective and parents walk in from the left.
18. Sharp cut to destroyed picnic.
19. Close up of the parents and detectives reactions.
20. A shot back to the picnic, but close up.
21. The girl, bear and witch hand in hand walking away together into the distance. The camera distorts and goes black and white.
22. Title.

PLOT - TEDDY BEARS PICNIC (Made for feedback)

The film TEDDY BEARS PICNIC is about a young family, a mum, dad and their young daughter. The family decide to go into the woods for a fun, exciting teddy bears picnic together but this picnic becomes twisted and all is not what it seems.
The young girl 'Piper' drops her favourite bear and without her parents knowing and runs away to go searching for it, little does she know the woods is owned by a crazy, controlling witch who captures those who walk on her turf. The girl is captured by the witch, and the hunt for her begins. the picnic was left by the parents the day of the capturing in a good state, however when they return the picnic is all smashed and the teddies and ripped apart, and all unstuffed.
the family is torn apart, and the detective must put the pieces of evidence together to find the young helpless girl.