Saturday, 30 April 2016
Talent release forms
Focus group release forms...
As we decided to film our focus group to use, instead of just using lost of questionnaires, we thought it would be a good idea to get all the people we included to sign a "personal release form", this is because it shows that we got consent from everyone in the process of our media product. This is also very important because them signing this gave us consent to use them in our work of "Dolls Domain the focus group". If we didn't end up getting these forms, the people we used wouldn't have given full consent and therefore wouldn't be able to withdraw their information. Even though this was only a small part of our work, the focus group did massively help us with forming our work because it showed us what people look for in horror movies.
Our cast release form...
As we only had one person for our cast, it meant we only needed one personal release form for our primary task media product. However, the personal release forms are just as important to the ones shown above for the focus group. This is because it gave us permission to feature this person with in our film opening. Additionally, unlike the people above, this person was under the age of 18, so we had to get parental consent for her to be in our opening. This is another important factor because it by law, children under the age of 18 are in much more need of protection and sometimes their own consent, isn't always able to stand alone- we had to get a parent to sign us permission.
Risk Assessments
Risk Assessment:
Risk Assessments are very important a necessary for to do before shooting. This is because it shows us any problems we may face so then we can prevent them from happening.
An example of this, is when we went into the forest, we could have faced risks such as losing our way- getting lost in the forest. Or we could have went when it was wet and slippery and slipped over. Or we could have been approach by a gang (at worst case) and we could get caught up.
This meant we were able to look out and help prevent these from occurring.
For example, making sure if we did go far into the forest at least one of us could remember the way back, that we all had our phones in case for some reason we got separated and we never went some where with out signal so we could always contact someone if needed- this also helped if we were to be approached by people whom we did not know. Also we went on a moderately dry day, although we did start film outside the summer season so have a wet forest was going to be inevitable. But because we were prepared, it meant we were able to wear the appropriate shoes and didn't slip.
Location scouting sheet
Location release Forms...
Location release forms are just as important as the ones we used for our cast and focus group. This is because it shows we have been deemed permission to shoot on these premises. Seeing as we didn't shoot in many private places- other than in the members of this groups homes, we didn't need to fill in that many forms.
Editing Treatment
When editing, I learned different techniques such as adding factors onto the video to change it.
For example, I changed the curves on our clips to make it darker in certain parts of the product, originally the shots were over exposed in certain places, this meant when editing we could improve the way it looks.
For example, I changed the curves on our clips to make it darker in certain parts of the product, originally the shots were over exposed in certain places, this meant when editing we could improve the way it looks.
A treatment I used to add to the horror genre, was creating a vignette. To do this I searched on YouTube to find out the method to do so. This consisted on me making a title screen shot. Making a shape. Changing the gradient. Changing the opacity. Resulting in the final result of our vignette. The reason I thought it was a good idea for a vignette was because it creates that stereotypical tunneling aspect, we focus on the middle part because then the rest is unclear. In the image above, you can see how the vignette has helped to make only some of her face light. I really liked this effect.
Another way in which I treated our media product was by the use of "Noise". This gave it a grainy effect which moved on the screen like an old movie. However when I put it on YouTube, this effect was lost a little bit. However in darker shots, it is still visible.
Main Influences
As shown on the blog post Secondary research-(http://ferndisneyasmediag321.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Secondary%20research) our influences consisted on several different horror films.
However, in all, I believe the main influence for our final idea of dolls, is the film The Woman In Black. This is because the film opening- linked here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z_XetLZlqc), consists of the innocence of child like features forming an eerie sense. The characters are playing with dolls and tea cups- this is what gave myself the idea of having these props in our media product. I really liked this opening and thought it worked really well- thus showing the main influences.
The two images above show how the influence of The woman In Black opening had a big impact on the decision making. In an ideal world, it would have been nice to use a china tea set. However due to the lack of funds, we had to use plastic one. Personally, I still think this has had the same effect because it shows how sometimes children don't play with china tea sets, sometimes it's just plastic.
Again due to funding, we didn't have any dolls as shown in the woman in black. However Kaya did have small wish dolls which we used instead. Again I think this shows the influence on our media product because it shows the way the simplistic props of child toys can be manipulated to be scary and form that horror atmosphere/ genre. Furthermore, I thought the idea of wish dolls work well as well, normally they are used to take bad dreams away from children at night, however we got someone to play with them- using them in a creepy way instead of doing good for a child. Therefore, I believe that even though our props aren't the exact same as our main influence, it has given us ideas to manipulate and turn into our own.
However, in all, I believe the main influence for our final idea of dolls, is the film The Woman In Black. This is because the film opening- linked here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z_XetLZlqc), consists of the innocence of child like features forming an eerie sense. The characters are playing with dolls and tea cups- this is what gave myself the idea of having these props in our media product. I really liked this opening and thought it worked really well- thus showing the main influences.
The two images above show how the influence of The woman In Black opening had a big impact on the decision making. In an ideal world, it would have been nice to use a china tea set. However due to the lack of funds, we had to use plastic one. Personally, I still think this has had the same effect because it shows how sometimes children don't play with china tea sets, sometimes it's just plastic.
Again due to funding, we didn't have any dolls as shown in the woman in black. However Kaya did have small wish dolls which we used instead. Again I think this shows the influence on our media product because it shows the way the simplistic props of child toys can be manipulated to be scary and form that horror atmosphere/ genre. Furthermore, I thought the idea of wish dolls work well as well, normally they are used to take bad dreams away from children at night, however we got someone to play with them- using them in a creepy way instead of doing good for a child. Therefore, I believe that even though our props aren't the exact same as our main influence, it has given us ideas to manipulate and turn into our own.
MKF Company Logo
MKF Logo.
The idea for our company name was stemmed from the first letter in each of our names. Ideas were either MKF, KFM or FMK. We choose MKF because this one had the best ring to it.
Ideas for our logo could have been to help create form the genre of our Media product, like other companies do- For example, Disney have a logo of curly writing- childlike, with the Disney castle in as most films produced are of the Disney princesses. However we wanted to go a bit different, a logo what represents us as a team not just our genre. Therefore an eagle is a great representation, symbolizing strength.
Existing logos...
This logo shows the creation of our company logo very well. There is the image at the top- going into film tape, with the writing underneath- ours has the image of an eagle at the top going into film tape with the writing underneath. I think this example is really good because its called "Rocky Mountain" and the picture is of film as mountains. Even though first looking at it, ours are different- the words with the picture, but as exampled above, the image describes our group very well. I also think the simplistic aspect of this logo is a good idea- it isn't flashy or anything.
The creation of our logo.
As shown above, we took ideas from companies such as rocky mountain and as shown on Megan's blog, we also used Disney's touchstone"for inspiration for the font. We wanted to have a simple font with capitals on the name- MKF.
We made our logo on a website called "free logos"- http://www.freelogoservices.com
Friday, 29 April 2016
Brief Film synopsis
Our Synopsis:
-"We are introduced to the small village of Boven in the countryside of England, a village that inhabits members whom have gained acquaintance for many, many years, through many, many generations. A quiet, peaceful, tranquil town... Or so you would think.
When Lucy (Kaya Dalton), a kind student from London, decides to take a trip to Boven for a reunion with her long lost cousins, things just do not seem to add up. Friendly, welcoming members of the society begin to disappear, one by one. Frantically Lucy tries to search for an answer, who is doing this to Boven and what do they want?
It could be Lucy's detective-like work that gets her into a seriously dangerous and life threatening situation. When faced with death - Lucy finally comes face to face with the Human Dolls of Boven. Was it fate that brought Lucy her, or perhaps a very convenient coincidence? Leaving us all questioning who are these dolls, what exactly do they want with Lucy?"
Explanation:
- As a group we came up with this synopsis, upon researching other film synopsis' of a similar genre to ours, such as The Woman in Black (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596365/synopsis). Researching this synopsis helped us to only include information that we thought was totally vital and interesting too the audience, whilst also outlining the plot, an almost 'who done it' style of synopsis, we found that many supernatural horror synopsis's have a 'who done it' element to their synopsis's and therefore we gathered inspiration from those.
- We wanted to set our film in the isolated setting of a village to evoke fear within our consumers - typically villages have a low count of police, ambulance and other emergency services. We intended for the lack of these vital services and the terror that is caused by the dolls to create tension and a sense of hopelessness for the lives of the villagers and Lucy.
- We decided to use a lot of rhetorical questions within the synopsis, again, to keep the audience questioning and guessing - thus creating mystery and the fear of the unknown.
This was the work of Megan Byrne, copied from her blog because she was in charge of doing the film synopsis for our media product/ primary task.
-"We are introduced to the small village of Boven in the countryside of England, a village that inhabits members whom have gained acquaintance for many, many years, through many, many generations. A quiet, peaceful, tranquil town... Or so you would think.
When Lucy (Kaya Dalton), a kind student from London, decides to take a trip to Boven for a reunion with her long lost cousins, things just do not seem to add up. Friendly, welcoming members of the society begin to disappear, one by one. Frantically Lucy tries to search for an answer, who is doing this to Boven and what do they want?
It could be Lucy's detective-like work that gets her into a seriously dangerous and life threatening situation. When faced with death - Lucy finally comes face to face with the Human Dolls of Boven. Was it fate that brought Lucy her, or perhaps a very convenient coincidence? Leaving us all questioning who are these dolls, what exactly do they want with Lucy?"
Explanation:
- As a group we came up with this synopsis, upon researching other film synopsis' of a similar genre to ours, such as The Woman in Black (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596365/synopsis). Researching this synopsis helped us to only include information that we thought was totally vital and interesting too the audience, whilst also outlining the plot, an almost 'who done it' style of synopsis, we found that many supernatural horror synopsis's have a 'who done it' element to their synopsis's and therefore we gathered inspiration from those.
- We wanted to set our film in the isolated setting of a village to evoke fear within our consumers - typically villages have a low count of police, ambulance and other emergency services. We intended for the lack of these vital services and the terror that is caused by the dolls to create tension and a sense of hopelessness for the lives of the villagers and Lucy.
- We decided to use a lot of rhetorical questions within the synopsis, again, to keep the audience questioning and guessing - thus creating mystery and the fear of the unknown.
This was the work of Megan Byrne, copied from her blog because she was in charge of doing the film synopsis for our media product/ primary task.
Horror Time line
Horror timeline from FernDisney
When researching for our primary task, each of us done a media timeline resembling our genre. This was Horror. This was important to our work because it shows the evolution of horror movies, displaying how our media product resembles a more modern take onto the genre.
When researching for our primary task, each of us done a media timeline resembling our genre. This was Horror. This was important to our work because it shows the evolution of horror movies, displaying how our media product resembles a more modern take onto the genre.
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
Planning for Shoots- Props and location and cast
Location 1: Forrest.
Our original idea was to film half our media product in a bedroom, and the other half in a Forrest, this is because when we decided to film, it was a misty day and in general looks rather creepy, therefore we filmed our character running through the Forrest. However when we came to editing, we found that if we were to put in a running scene on top of what we already had of the dolls, it would ruin the atmosphere built and therefore we would have to choose one or the other, therefore we chose the dolls, however the Forrest is present in a short shot filmed, when we filmed an image of a 'victim' hanging on a tree swinging in the wind, this in itself was rather creepy because it gives an eerie sense.
Props: Tea cups
For one of our props we bought tea cups. Our original plan was to take off the stickers and draw flowery patterns on them as at first we thought this would be creepier to what they were at first. However when we came to drawing on them, it was rather difficult and decided they did actually look better in this way anyway. Also we were able to cover them in mud. These shots were also filmed in the location of the Forrest. This was because instead of filming it all indoors we thought this could also be quite creepy because it's as if who ever is playing with them is having an almost teddies bear picnic.
Props: chalkboard
For our main credits we used a chalk board and chalk. This is because we decided to hand hold film this and put noise on it to form an old cinematic horror film. I got this inspiration from a horror TV show I have watched in the past called the American horror show. I thought this effect really works with our theme.
Props: images
This is the example of the 'victim' shot that we actually used. We did shoot 5 however this was the best one to come out. This was also shoot in the forest as explained above. To create this effect we originally printed off images of portraits and manipulated them by hand. I got this inspiration from work in which I have done for photography. We scratched out faces wrote on them and pretty much destroyed them.
Props: dolls house
As we choose a child innocence to be manipulated into being creepy, we thought the best and main prop we had to use was a doll house. For our luck, Kaya had this one. I was a very nice and haunting looking doll house which was very lucky and it also meant we didn't have to buy one. It was also rather big which was a good advantage.
Location: Megan's bedroom
As our theme we horror but by manipulating a child like innocence to form it and we are using dolls, we thought it would be a good idea to shoot part of our product in a pretty bedroom. It was very handy that Megan's bedroom resembels the looks which was intended. Above is an image taken from our final product showing what is seen in the product- the mental bed frame. I really like it and am glad we shot the dolls scene here.
Props: wish dolls
Another prop we used was little wishing dolls. These were kayas so we didn't have to buy these. These were very useful because by the size of the dollhouse creates a contrast by the small size of the dolls and the hand playing with them. The person playing with them puts them on the stairs and knocks them down. This is very brutal and suggests a horrific deadly atmosphere around. As you can see from the screen shot, it is on top of a vignette and noise, along with being hand held. I really like these effects with the dolls because I believe they all work together to form that horror feel. Additionally as it was hand held, the focus keeps going in and out which I really like because it gives an eerie effect of someone's watching you.
Make-up
As we are shooting doll different types of dolls- one Dark and one Bright- yet both used to be scary, we came up with different makeup techniques we wanted to use-our main source was by using Pinterest to find and stimulate ideas. Even though these would have been a good idea, we were unable to do this type of makeup our-self. So we took a simpler approach in doing doll make-up.
Doll 1- Bright doll- We done the stereotypical outlined red lipstick on our doll, with long fake eye-lashes and pink eye shadow.
Doll 2- Dark Doll- We made this doll with the lips not fitting the whole lip- like the first image displayed above. I thought this was a good idea because it showed a good stereotypical doll.
Costume
This is one of the costumes which we used. The was the one we used for the "Bright doll". Our reasons for this was because the tutu came out like a "stereotypical" doll outfit. This was very important because we wanted to make it as believe as we could, this would later help us in creating that horror genre.
Evaluation questions and audience
•
In
what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
•
How
does your media product represent particular social groups?
•
What
kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
•
Who
would be the audience for your media product?
•
How
did you attract/address your audience?
•
What
have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
•
Looking
back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
Audience.
How to define an audience…
GEARS… Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Region/ Nationality, Socio-economic group.
Our production is for Females because it is about dolls- the stereotypical toy for a female. The age would be 15 and up. This is because it is a horror and some viewers may find distressing. There isn't a key nationality or socio-economic group because anyone can watch it if they want to.
Hypodermic Needle Model.
Audiences are passive, easily let, influenced and manipulated, gullible, sheep-like fashion-followers.
Media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviour of audience. Sometimes called "magic bullet" theory liked to propaganda and advertising, Behaviourist models of human behaviour
Uses andGratifications model
Audiences are active in choosing media for their own "Gratifications" (pleasure)
links to Maslow's hierarchy of needs
By Blumler and Katz
Main reasons for using media:
Personal identity- To define who we are
Information
Entertainment- encluding escape
Social interaction- to help us socialise with like minded people.
The traditional Segmentation model.
There isn't a particular class for our genre, we intend to create our production for those who are fans of horror, not based on their class. Although I do believe it is mainly E to C1,- those above would see watch this however. This is because the main character of our production is a 16/17 year our (our age) which makes her in in the E class in the first place because we don't earn money and we are just students. Therefore it is likely that people in social grade E could easily identify with our film, increasing the chances of the lower social grades watching it.
Young and Rubicam 4 Cs model.
Cross- Cultural Consumer model-
A more useful audience segmentation model than the traditional ABC1 categorisation.
It acknowledges the global nature of media audiences.
Divides audiences into 7 types of consumer
4 main categories are MARS…
MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS.
The other categories to be added to this are (ERS) EXPLORER RESIGNED STRUGGLER.
It takes the following as consumer motivations: security, control, status, individuality, freedom, survival and escape.
For my production, I think it is "The mainstream" cultural consumer. This is because our production is a horror film which suits the characteristics of people who live in the world of the domestic and everyday. A daily routine is fundamental to the way they live their lives- supernatural horrors have become more popular thereof roe with this growing popularity the mainstream audiences may follow the crowd- for example films saw as the conjuring, insidious and sinister.
Audience.
How to define an audience…
GEARS… Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Region/ Nationality, Socio-economic group.
Our production is for Females because it is about dolls- the stereotypical toy for a female. The age would be 15 and up. This is because it is a horror and some viewers may find distressing. There isn't a key nationality or socio-economic group because anyone can watch it if they want to.
Hypodermic Needle Model.
Audiences are passive, easily let, influenced and manipulated, gullible, sheep-like fashion-followers.
Media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviour of audience. Sometimes called "magic bullet" theory liked to propaganda and advertising, Behaviourist models of human behaviour
Uses andGratifications model
Audiences are active in choosing media for their own "Gratifications" (pleasure)
links to Maslow's hierarchy of needs
By Blumler and Katz
Main reasons for using media:
Personal identity- To define who we are
Information
Entertainment- encluding escape
Social interaction- to help us socialise with like minded people.
The traditional Segmentation model.
There isn't a particular class for our genre, we intend to create our production for those who are fans of horror, not based on their class. Although I do believe it is mainly E to C1,- those above would see watch this however. This is because the main character of our production is a 16/17 year our (our age) which makes her in in the E class in the first place because we don't earn money and we are just students. Therefore it is likely that people in social grade E could easily identify with our film, increasing the chances of the lower social grades watching it.
Young and Rubicam 4 Cs model.
Cross- Cultural Consumer model-
A more useful audience segmentation model than the traditional ABC1 categorisation.
It acknowledges the global nature of media audiences.
Divides audiences into 7 types of consumer
4 main categories are MARS…
MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS.
The other categories to be added to this are (ERS) EXPLORER RESIGNED STRUGGLER.
It takes the following as consumer motivations: security, control, status, individuality, freedom, survival and escape.
For my production, I think it is "The mainstream" cultural consumer. This is because our production is a horror film which suits the characteristics of people who live in the world of the domestic and everyday. A daily routine is fundamental to the way they live their lives- supernatural horrors have become more popular thereof roe with this growing popularity the mainstream audiences may follow the crowd- for example films saw as the conjuring, insidious and sinister.
Friday, 15 April 2016
Evaluation of dolls domain
This is the first cut of our work of dolls domain.
Every time there is a credit we thought it would be a good idea to use a chalkboard. I personally think this effect works really well. Megan (the camera woman) filmed it hand held making it look shaky and quite eerie- the effect we wanted.
The sound. As the edited I thought it would be a good idea to build up sound for the build up of the atmosphere. This is the bit from the screen. This shows how I used lots of different things but left gaps in-between- I thought this would create the suspense well. The long green bar is music- a sort of music box tune. This is the sound we wanted because it builds up the wanted suspense and also seems very creepy.the green bars that are broken up are whispers or someone speaking. As you can't understand exactly what is being said it helps build that suspense up even more, leaving the questioning of what is she saying? It also makes the eerie sense because it's as if a child is hiding and asking for help. Orginally, we planned for this voice over to be on another clip- of someone running in the forrest, however it didn't fit very well so we decided to put it all the way through.
For our characters we had the same person although dressed in two different ways. The top one is the "dark doll" and the bottom is the "bright doll. I thought this was a good idea because even though they are both creepy, there is still a contrast between the two. When editing I decreased the speed, this made it much slower and creepier because it holds an eerie sense. In these two examples, they are slowly tilting their head starting at the camera. I wanted them to keep looking at the camera because it holds that attention of the audience, as if they are forced to keep looking into their eyes, even if it makes them uncomfortable.
Here the dark doll is slowly waving- as if she has seen us. I like this bit because it all goes well together. It all looks very creepy. With the tilting of heads and the waving, it's quite daughting.
Half way through there is a clip of one of the dolls slowly closing the eyes- as if her clockwork has run out- she needs to be rewound. Yet later on I put a faster clip of her eye opening. As if she has a mind of her own. I think this is a good aspect of the production because it helps build up that horror atmosphere/ genre.
At the end of the production, there is a slow upwards pan of the dollhouse, this shows a shadowing of a hand playing with something. When it reaches the top, you see a some window, which the camera slowly zooms into where we are met with complete darkness. Here I am planning on putting a scream on, to make the audience jump.
These are examples of the props and locations we used.
Evaluation from FernDisney
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