Pitch for Our Film

We showed a class of year 9's and a class of year 13's, a powerpoint containing a pitch for our film. This involved telling them the storyline and title meaning of our film, showing the general storyboard of our idea, showing our created film logos, and some possible quotes for the beginning of the film opening, and then asking for some opinions. 

Generally, we got positive feedback for film genre and storyline, and they liked the idea. We also got positive feedback from the title of out film, with someone suggesting it was a 'clever idea'. Someone commented that we had a good range of camera shot ideas. The logos we also got positive feedback from, where students of our target audience said they looked very professional and well edited. Some people didn't like the sound on our 'Masquerade' logo, however we'd already changed this on our video edit, and there was a comment made that the background could be darker, however when we tried this, the black mask on our logo didn't look very effective. 

We got a mixture of opinions on the quotes, where the majority however chose a quote that we also liked, and others liked the ending of our most lengthy quote. From this feedback we decided to take both quotes and incorporate them both into the beginning of our film opening. 

Teamwork Planning!

Here are some screenshots of how we planned our media work outside of school on our online Facebook group media chat, between me, Rosy, Liberty and Liam:

Opening Titles Order

Here is the typical order of opening credits in a film, which is why we set ours out in the way that we did:

• (NAME OF THE STUDIO)

Name of the studio that is distributing the film and may or may not have produced it (Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia, Lions Gate, Universal, Marvel Studios, Dimension, Miramax etc.).

• (NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY)

Name of the production company that actually made the film or name of the investment groups or companies that financed a substantial part of the film (usually credited as "in association with" or "A (studio name) production.").

• (PRODUCER NAME) PRODUCTION or/and (director only) A FILM BY (DIRECTOR NAME)

Director's first credit, often "a film by XY or "a XY film".

• STARRING

Principal actors, (Sometimes the stars' and director's credits will be reversed, depending on the star's deal with the studio; sometimes, as in the Rodgers and Hammersteinfilms, or as in all three film versions of Show Boat, or, as in many of Disney's films, the title of the film will be shown before the names of its actors; sometimes, as in many of Cannon's films, the name(s) of the principal actor(s) will be shown before the name(s) of the producer(s), i.e. "The Cannon Group presents X in a Golan-Globus production of a Y film").

• (FILM'S TITLE)

Name of the film.

• FEATURING

Featured actors.

• CASTING or CASTING BY

Casting director.

• MUSIC or MUSIC COMPOSED BY or ORIGINAL SCORE BY

Composer of music.

• PRODUCTION DESIGN or PRODUCTION DESIGNER

Production designer.

Taken from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_credits

(Taken from Liberty Shaw: http://libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/common-order-of-opening-credits.html)

Quotes

We had an idea to add a quote near the beginning of our film sequence, to give the audience a better idea of what ideas are involved in the film, and to put forward the idea that the vampire and human are the same person as an alter-ego. To make this effective, we thought we'd choose a quote from 'The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde' - one of the most famous supernatural alter-ego style stories.

Here are some of the possibilities, written by the author Robert Louis Stevenson:

• "Quiet Minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."

• "If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also."

• "You must suffer me to go my own dark way."

• "With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discover I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.

• "I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.

(Quotes found by me and Liberty: http://libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/)

(image source: Google images)

Storyboard

We sketched out an original storyboard, but have added it later to compare it to our full storyboard which we used actual images for, to show the sequence of narrative and shots used in our film opening.

(From: http://liam-hand-media-course-work-stuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/storyboards.html )

Initial Feedback

Before our full feedback, we rendered an incomplete version of the edited video so far and showed it to a small group of students to get their opinions. Our overall feedback was very positive, and some students grasped the conventions we were trying to create such as the killer wearing all black to connote death and mystery, which is a good point. We also got a good reaction to the end clip of the eyes opening, which was described as effective and a good ending to the tension building. There was a suggestion for improvement, which included adding heavy breathing and footsteps sounds to the clip, to add more suspense, which was our original plan anyway, which is also a good point.
 Later, the clip was shown again to another small group of students who thought the order of the clip was a bit confusing, and in some areas looked more like a movie trailer, which could just be a result of not seeing the whole finished clip, but we shall take these points into account anyway and may create several different films with clips in different orders, and when shown to another audience, we can decide which one is best.

Here is the initial short, unfinished video that was shown to our first audience:

Editing

The first thing we did after getting all of the video clips together was sort through them, deleting the ones we didn't need, keeping the ones we did need and some that we weren't sure of, as well as re-naming all of the ones we kept so they were easy to recognise and use in the video.

Then, we began the editing, by inserting our created company logos, and the video clips onto the program Sony Vegas Pro. We took away the sound of the clips in order to put new sound in later, and then 'split' clips up to make them easier to work with. 'Flashback' clips we changed the speed of, to give a slow-motion effect, and also the colour to 75% black and white for a more surreal effect, with fading through white transitions to make it look 'separate from the real world or time'. Some clips needed to be cropped where something was included in the shot which wasn't necessary, so we used the crop tool with original size scaling on to amend this. Now the clips are ready to put into a sequence with music, credits and the title.

Rosy creating the 'Porphyria' title on Sony Vegas:

Filming

The preparation for our filming involved putting make-up and fake blood on the actors, and setting up the location, as well as explaining to the characters exactly what we needed to do.

 Here is the main shot of the location we chose:

Shots of actor make-up being applied:

Video of the actor being told what do in the filming:

Risk Assessment

Before doing our filming, we needed to do a risk assessment in order to be aware of safety measures to do with our setting and props involved, for the safety of our actors and other members of the public.
Here is our risk assessment taken from:
http://liam-hand-media-course-work-stuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/risk-assessment.html

Lionsgate

We decided that our production company will be a collaboration with the film company 'Lionsgate', an independent television and film distribution company in North America. The reason we chose this is because it has created many films with similar genre to ours, which is better than a bigger media ownership company like Universal or Columbia which don't specialise in particular genre's or smaller film projects. Some of the films Lionsgate have been involved in to do with vampires that can inspire our project, include A Vampires Tale, Cravings, Dark Town and Heartless.

Due to this, we had to add Lionsgate to our video. To do so, we needed to create a new logo for them to avoid copyright, so I did this by using the transition effects on windows movie maker, with text and a copyright-free 'swoosh' sound (which we will add later on the actual video). Here is the result, which we shall use on out video:

And here is a picture of me creating this logo..

Masquerade Productions Logo

Video logo completed:

And again in HD..

I'm not too positive that the music I chose for this clip will work within the actual video, so when we do the diting for the video, we will try out a selection of different sounds.

Logo

Original photo taken:

I edited this image by changing the contrast highly and increasing the highlights to remove the background and to emphasise the contrasting colours of the masks. I then changed the overall tone to black and white, excluding the red mask, to create a more mysterious effect. To erase the green background reflection, I changed all the reflection colours on the masks. I then added a black shadow outline to the image to add to the effect. Finally I added on the text, whilst changing the font style, size and colour, to fit appropriately, then changing the opacity on them to also further add to the mysterious serenity theme of the logo.

Edited photo: logo

I will create this image into a video clip where it fades in and the text appears, to make it more interactive and professional.

Fake Blood

Link to fake blood we will use as party of mis-en-scene, made by Liberty Shaw:
http://libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fake-blood.html

Logo Photos

We put a couple of masquerade masks on a 'green screen'  cloth and took several photos, which can be later edited for our final 'Masquerade' production company logo.

Link to initial logo photos by Liberty Shaw:
http://libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/logo-photos.html

Shotlist

Before filming, a shot list is essential so we know how many shots and which types of shots we need for our film, and where abouts they are in our film opening.
here is a link to the shotlist:
http://liam-hand-media-course-work-stuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/shotlist.html

Mis-en-scene

Setting - The scene will be set in a dark subway, to fit with our theme of darkness and secrecy
Credits - the credits will be on the walls 'written in blood', to also fit the conventions of our genre, but at this stage we are unsure whether to paint this on the walls or edit it on later, so we shall try both.
Costume - the main character will be wearing all black, to connote mystery, evil and death, as he is unsure of what has happened, and his alter ego is kept secret until the end of the clip, and to imply at first that he is an evil character, which fits his stereotypical role as a vampire. The victim will be wearing mostly pale colours to represent innocence, with bits of red to represent danger. There will be blood on the victim from the attack, which shall be made from corn syrup and food colouring.

Experimenting with make-up:

Inspirations and Film Openings Analysis

Van Helsing

'Van Helsing' contrasts with our idea, by the fact the protagonist is not actually shown in the opening sequence, and the opening sequence is nearly 8 minutes long, as well as being in a completely different location and time period. However it does have the same genre conventions, where the setting is dark and mysterious, typical of a supernatural gothic horror, alike to what we wish to create, as well as the element of mystery, where the protagonist (as not present) is unaware of what is going on in this scene. The characters aren't revealed as to who they are directly, and what their importance is to the story, alike to our idea, but is revealed through hints to the audience (such as with a very sudden flash of Dracula's true form in the lightening, similar to our idea of flashbacks to reveal more about the character through his actions).  The characters are revealed towards the end of the clip, when Igor and Frankenstein's names are revealed and Dracula shows his fangs and bites Frankenstein's neck, which again has similarities with our theme of vampires, and the revelation of this theme towards the end of the opening sequence.

A lot of wide or panning shots are used throughout to set the scene, which we could take as inspiration for ours, with a few POV shots to show how Dr Frankenstein, who is scared of Dracula and trying to get away, is feeling and how he views Dracula (with low angle shots to show how the vampire is the superior, something we could use). There is no music, only the sounds of the footsteps and speech or breathing, something else that has inspired us for the sound of our opening, to build tension to keep the audience captivated by what they see on screen by wondering what is going to happen or what is going on in the first place.

 

*sudden flash shot to reveal more to audience*

*Dracula POV shot that is slightly high angle to make his victim look inferior, a technique we can use between our character and the person he has killed*

SLEEPY HOLLOW

'Sleepy Hollow' is a Tim Burton film which can be an inspiration to my own coursework. Although it is not a vampire film, it is supernatural thriller/gothic horror that has an opening involving elements of mystery and tension, where the killer isn't revealed fully throughout the opening sequence, but hints at who it may be, which are all techniques we could achieve in our film to make it look effective like successful films such as this. Also relevant to our idea, the opening credits actually feature an opening sequence of film rather than just title credits.

The setting is very dark, which fits it's theme, and the colours are also very representative, such as the black carriage to connote death and mystery. The victim who gets killed later in the sequence is wearing pale colours, to represent innocence and the fact he is less powerful, whereas the headless horseman, the supernatural antagonist, is wearing black to also connote death, danger and mystery. These features are important to portray in the opening sequence in order to set the scene and the theme or the rest of the movie, an important idea that we need to consider for our opening titles because it needs to make clear the story of our film, due to our coursework involving only making the one part of the film.

There are a lot of camera angles that make the innocent man look inferior, such as high angle shots and also POV shots from the antagonist before attacking the victim – two techniques we can use to make the victim in our first sequence look inferior and the vampire look superior.

It also has several shots of the pumpkin head on the scarecrow, an object that is relevant to other parts of the film which is revealed to the audience at the start as a hint. To take inspiration from this we can have a running theme of an object that is relevant to the story in our opening sequence to give more hint to what the story is about, and to make this relevant to our vampire theme, we can use blood as our reference object.

This film contrasts to ours firstly by being created by a large international company, that is set in America, in the year 1799, whereas ours will be set in present day England. However, the techniques to create the theme we can still similarly use.

Danny Elfman uses a combination of silence and slow music that crescendo's to create tension and fear throughout the opening sequence, to keep the audience hooked from the very start, which is something that can inspire us for our film opening in terms of our audience.

In terms of editing there aren't many effects, until effects are used for the victim's head being chopped off, to keep the film looking realistic, but to also make the killing scene a shock factor right at the start of the film. 

The actual credits of the film fade into the video in a white smoky effect, which is ominous looking and further connotes mystery and that something is 'not quite right' in the atmosphere. This shows how important the actual text is put into the opening sequence, and is something we need to consider to show representations in our video.

(text appearing in smoky effect ^)

DAYBREAKERS

'Daybreakers' is a vampire film that can relate a lot to our idea. The general opening sequence involves a young vampire girl writing a note or diary entry about what it is like being a vampire, and then going outside and waiting for the sun to rise - where the sunlight then kills her; she commits suicide because she doesn't like who she is and cannot change. This is similar to ours in the sense that our character cannot accept that he is also a vampire and cannot deal with it, however this isn't completely made clear in our opening idea because our protagonist is involved in the whole film so in our opening the hints will only be subtle. The credits of the film also differ, where the production team's names appear on a blank screen separate to film clips, and fade in to look mysterious, but our idea is to actually inco-operate the credits into the video clips as well as the cast, which this film actually does with the cast in the sequence after the opening scene, by animating names into different parts of the setting, an inspiration to our idea for our text.

 The film is also created in association with Lionsgate, an independent film company that has been involved in many successful films of the genre we want to create, so this is another thing we can consider. 

At the beginning in between the credits appearing, there is a short sudden shot of  vampire bat, to surprise the audience and cause fear, and give implications about what is to come, and to break up the block text, another technique that can be considered. The first shot of the girl is a high angle/birds-eye-view shot, to make her look inferior, and powerless, but as she is alone, possibly powerless to herself, which would fit with the rest of the sequence. With the idea of a helpless vampire being an inspiration also to our film, shots like this can also be important to us. There are a lot of pictures of the girl looking 'normal' and human, implying she is not always or hasn't always been a vampire, which is an inspiration to our movie theme. The shots of the note/diary entry that the girl has written, are very zoomed in, with an editing technique where only certain words are in focus, such as 'never change', 'never grow up' and 'can't go on' which gives the implications that she is a vampire, and that she cannot cope with herself that way. Long shots in the dark of the girl, set the scene around her, to make it look a mysterious and set the dark theme for the rest of the film, which is important for the opening sequence, and something that we would need to consider for a successful film to show typical genre conventions. The showing of her different coloured eyes is the main revelation that the girl is supernatural or a vampire, when she shows her face full for the first time, and then when she burns in the sunlight, this is the shock factor for the audience before the appearance of the title screen. These two things are factors that inspired me most from this film for ideas in our film opening, that will keep the attention of the audience. 

The general whole film also inspired me because of the modern day setting, involving vampires, with scientific elements including the vampires being the result of an 'outbreak' along with experiments and specialist blood for the vampires, which is the kind of thing that fits with the name of our film 'Porphyria' which is scientific theory about vampires.



Sweeny Todd

The Sweeny Todd opening is interesting because it is all animated with CGI, which makes it separate from the rest of the film, and also something memorable to the audience, as well as giving a surreal, mysterious effect. The sequence follows one object - blood , which is associated with death, danger, gothic horror films, but also our theme of vampires, which is something we can consider. The use of following one thing around the whole sequence is a useful way of setting the scene, by revealing other things into the shot it reveals more about what is to come in the rest of the film, such as showing the barber's chair, but also a baker's oven, which hints to the audience that these things are connected, from the start. By making it's way around the rooms, it establishes the main setting for the audience, but doesn't show the whole rooms, which again gives a mysterious effect and keeps the reader wanting to watch more. The credits appear on screen within the film setting, like our idea, where the names come up on blank areas or objects of the clip, a technique to show how they are more included with the making of the film.

Sweeny Todd opening:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/sweeney-todd-the-demon-barber-of-fleet-street/

(sources of images: Google images and screenshots of original film)

Schedule

Link to the schedule for our production by Liam Hand:

http://liam-hand-media-course-work-stuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/schedule-for-our-work.html

Names/Logo planning

The final name for the film we decided on is 'Porphyria' because we thought it would fit with the theme of film very well, to do with the mystery of the protagonist's half human self and half vampire self, with the mystery that the vampire side may not be 'monstrou's, but scientific or psychological.

The name of our production company is 'Masquerade' because it reflects the element of secrecy and mystery, without being too related to the specific film, in order for it to be a production company for other films.

Logo - Reflecting the production company name, it shall be of 2 Venetian style masquerade masks, one red and one black, to reflect the genre of the film and the types of film the production company produce, with 'Masquerade' written underneath in a script-like font.

Actor/main character

Samuel Snowdon: our chosen actor to play the main character in our opening sequence. 

Possible Names

Possible names for our film include:

Sanguivoria - comes from the word 'fear of blood-eaters' or 'fear of vampires' which could represent the victim's fear or the general fear of the town it is set about a vampire on the loose. It could also represent the protagonist's inner fear about himself as a vampire.

Porphyria -  A condition that some scientists believe 'vampires' had which means they don't have harm in their blood so need to consume large amounts of blood to replace it. It causes sufferers to crave human blood like a thirst and drinking blood relieves their symptoms, and also makes them allegedly sensitive to sunlight. This would set the scene of the protagonist being accepted as more of a 'normal' person instead of a supernatural being, to show his true self rather than his alter ego, and could be used as an explanation at the end of the film to his behaviour, which is why he was in so much denial. It would also work with our modern-day based vampire theme.

Just One Bite - This could either mean one bite is all it takes for the protagonist to have control over his victim's fate, or his way of thinking that 'just one bite' won't do any harm when he is struggling to control his cravings, so represents his lack of self control throughout the film. 

Haemophilia - A bleeding disorder where there are excess internal or external bleeding episodes due to problems with blood clotting. This firstly relates to theme and craving of blood throughout the film and could refer to the excess about of blood being shed due to the cravings of the protagonist, and how the blood can't clot from a vampire attack as he sucks the blood out of them, or poisons it or doesn't take enough, to make the victim also become a vampire. 

Under The Surface - This represents the element of secrecy the protagonist has about his life, and that there is more to him, an alter-ego, that is under the surface of his own consciousness, where he can't control the points where he has transformed, and also how the rest of the world don't know about it either. 

Target Audience

Our aim of target audience is mostly teenagers and people in their early 20's, because this is the group that watch the genre most that we're aiming for, and also because we can receive the most feedback from this film.
Here is a link to more information on this by Liberty Shaw:
http://libertyshawmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/target-audience.html

Genre/Narrative

The genre of our initial idea for the opening of our film will be a supernatural thriller, which has proved a successful genre in the film industry with films such as Van Helsing, Underworld, The Blair Witch Project and Let the Right One In. It appeals to a range of target audiences, mostly between the ages of 15 and 50, and doesn't tend to differ in gender. In a lot of these films however, the vampire or the other supernatural being is the antagonist, the evil character who must be stopped, but with our idea, the vampire will be the protagonist - the main character who is innocent and struggling to cope with his secret life, despite being a killer.                         

                                                                                 (Modern-style vampires in the twilight saga )

Narrative - Our storyline is about a man who kills people as a vampire, but he doesn't at first know he is a vampire, it is an alter-ego alike to the story of Jekyll and Hyde. When he finds out, he doesn't like the idea of being a vampire, and is in denial, and the film is about him coping with his troubles, killing people along the way to aid his cravings. This is similar to older style vampire movies, to keep the traditional aspect of them with a modern edge, unlike the newer representations of vampires in popular films such as Twilight.  Our opening sequence reveals at the end that the protangonist is a vampire, where at the start of the scene, the viewer would only think there had been a 'normal' murder with the revealing of a body in a subway. 

(Jekyll and Hyde - alter ego's of the same person ^)

source of images: google images

Timeline of opening sequence:

• The camera shot is blurred, but slowly comes into focus, looking upwards as a POV shot, to show the character 'waking up' (from his vampire state, which at this stage is unknown)
• The character sees the body of someone 'dead' in the subway opposite him, and runs over to try and help (Still in POV shot)
• The character reaches out to help, but realises they already have blood on their hands (POV)
• The character staggers away from the body, unsure of whether they had something to do with the death (still in POV), and heads off down the subway, all that is heard is silence other than heavy 'panicked' breathing and footsteps.
• On the walls of the subway written in 'blood' is the credits of the film, such as 'featuring..., directed by...' etc. which appear clear as the protangonist walks closer to them.
• During this, quick shots of the 'dead person's' attack with high pitched 'scream' noises is put with the walking POV shots, to show disorientated flashbacks from the protangonists, but also reveal a bit more to the audience about what is going on. This is also put with shots of some of the character's features (bloody hands, walking feet, torso, etc) to reveal more to the audience about him, and cause more suspense. 
• The character bends down when noticing a puddle, and starts to wash his bloody hands (POV), and notices his reflection and seems scared.
• The camera pans around to see the face of the character for the first time, where he looks up, revealing blood on his lips and creepy looking features, to give away to the audience the vampire nature of the film. Eerie or dramatic supernatural sounding music begins to overlay.
• The scene cuts to a title page, revealing the title if the film, continuing with the music.
• This then cuts to a close up of the dead person's face, where she then opens her eyes (with creepy contacts in) and the music dramatically stops, to show the end of the scene and imply to the audience that this person is now also undead, or has been turned into a vampire. 

source of image: tumblr.com