Evaluation question 2

Post by me (Ruby Cooper)

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

                                                      Firstly looking at the characters in our opening sequence. 

As you can see our main character featuring in our opening sequence is a young girl. She is stereotypically a vulnerable girl in danger. This character represents her social group by portraying the idea of  young girls being innocent and naive. In a lot of films when the storyline is about a pedophile, its stereotypically known for a man to be stalking a young girl. Young girls are also shown a lot in horror movies as it is seen as creepy and unusual for a girl to act in abnormal ways. In our storyline Rosie is stereotypically your horror conventional 'little girl ghost' who the audience will feel threatened and put on edge by but later on discover that she is the innocent one who was actually the victim. This balances out both stereotypes in horror movies like the Orphan we still wanted to use a young girl as it helps the audience to feel pity and protective over the girl but also make the audience feel scared by her. At the same time a good example of our character Rosie that we want to show towards the end of the storyline is similar to the girl who plays Suzie Salmon in the film The Lovely Bones, this also shows how the use of a young actor is used a lot, helping show it is a well known social group to target when wanting to show youth and naivety. There is also 2 other young girls shown in the opening sequence relating to the same horror conventions as Rosie.

Here is the other main character shown in our opening sequence. Unfortunately our male actor dropped out at short notice so we had to use our editer of the film Mollie Knapp. Although she is not male she played the male role of Rosies stalker. Stereotypically stalkers are male. The sinister old male social group is shown well in this opening with a variety of camera angles never showing his face keeping a low secretive profile at all times like men who act like this would do. This over the shoulder shot shows how he is bent over creeping up behind her like a stereotypical pedophile would. 

Question 1

 Question 1 

I think that our opening sequence links closely to other horror movies that we have researched. Normally horror movies don’t start off as scary and progressively build up suspense and create a enigma. I think we have created this affect well. The use of horror conventions has helped us to achieve this. I think our highlighting skill in our opening is the lighting, when we came to edit the clip we made the lighting black and white which futher pushed the horror film stereotype. As young girls wouldn’t been seen playing out in the woods at night we decided to film them in the early evening but still in daylight to make it believable. When we were editing we decided to change the contrast to give the daylight a unusual eerie atmosphere. We didn’t want it to look like a bright day and realistic as it wouldn’t then be typically horror stylized. I also feel our location fits well for these conventions, the natural surrounding with the big trees creating shadows with the sun. This all helps Rosie look that bit more vunerable, making the audience feel even more sorry for her. We think the opening to the film the Shinning linked well with our opening and how it is in a isolated area and filmed in daylight. The use of slow motion in the opening of the girls skipping in a circle helped to build tention making the audience alert for what may or is about to happen. We have focused on the idea of gender representation a lot, we have done this by making the three girls appear vunderable and and innocent. The clothing they were dressed in helped with the main character Rosie who was wearing a white frilly dress. This is a typical outfit for a girl of her age. Her shoes are silver which also portrays her purity linking her to a angel.

The titles in our film are presented in a different way to most opening titles. This helps to focus the audience on the filming rather than just the text, this also gives the audience time to react on the footage they have just seen. At the end of our opening sequence we run a list of credits with a black background behind the font. We choose to do this to carry on the horror conventions with the colour black been accociated with horror. Although, Our production name and title ‘Rosie’ and ‘MMR productions’ is edited in a professional format similar to the opening titles we have researched. We also looked at a variety of colours that we could use in our font titles and the signifiers from these. In our opening sequence we have sections were the sun is shining through the tree branches we decided to do this to resemble how Rosie is shining through him. Giving the audience a glimpse of hope. But also a there as a constant reminder. The soundtrack used in our opening sequence is still a clear relation to the codes and conventions of a horror film. I believe that the soundtrack is good for creating the eerie uncomfortable atmosphere that we wanted it also helps build up the tension. The soundtrack also fits the storyline well with the use of a nursery rhyme – ‘Ring a ring a Rosie’ but also with the baby laughing and the music box relating to children. The soundtrack is heavily adapted to the situation with the use of unnerving sounds putting the audience at edge. We wanted to keep our audience captivated to keep the suspense continuously endering our audience. I believe we have managed to achieve this with the use of the nursery rhyme – ‘ring a ring a Rosie’ relating to the little girl. This also creates the enigma and further enhances her youth.

The pace of our editing was chosen to be slow to make it appear that  this is a story being told. The slow edit of our clip was used to build tension as this made the audience unsure when something bad was about to arise. This slow editing technique will affect the audience making them gain insight of what is happening as you can clearly see what is happening in each scene. If we were to continue making our film the pace of editing would pick up in the scene when the kidnapping would occur. The soundtrack makes a contrast reminder of the danger Rosie is in using digetic and non digetic sounds. The slow edit also helps the children have even more of a ghostly appearance. This affects the audience by creating suspense and a enigma as it questions the audience to wonder what are these children doing alone and what is about to happen next helping make the opening more dramatic.

Our opening sequence doesn’t strictly follow Todorov’s theory, as we start with a flashback not at the beginning therefore our film does not have a stable equilibrium.

The use of close ups shots follow the horror conventions and codes showing all signs of danger up close to alert the audience. 

Sounds

Sounds

We have researched some sounds we thought was appropriate when making our opening credits as we are having non diegetic sounds to create more suspense and allow the audience to really focus on whats going on in the short scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WojNlFShbPw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0Ccww3FOQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKI2gOawEPA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0yN4bKxhN0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e002BHJRBpw

You should add that non-diegetic sounds are common in the horror genre as they highten the tension and suspense. Then go on to give a couple of examples of horror opening titles that have done this effectively.

Non-diegetic sounds are common in the horrow genre as they highten the tension and suspense. For example Se7en, the soundtrack creates a unpleasant scratching sound which makes the audience

New shooting list

ew shooting schedule

This is our updated shot list to our new shot list we have given our self enough time to shoot our shots this time period gave us enough time to get lots of shots from different angles which will make it easier  when editing especially with continuity as we will have lots to choose from.

12.00am:		A mid shot of the tree and other shots of the trees so we have a vary of shots to choose from.
12:30am:		A shot of the man behind the tree we will get various shots to use to show he is watching Rosie.
1:00pm:		Shots of Rosie walking alone through the forest wondering through looking vulnerable.
1:30pm:		Shots of boots walking through the forest
2:00pm:		Shots of ring-a-ring-a rosies
3.00pm:		Shots of the man following Rosie
3.10pm:		Shot of ribbon
3.30pm:	Shot of legs walking to ribbon the floor
3.40pm:	Shot of hand holding ribbon

Change of credits

 

Change of credits

My Evaluation

change of the credits felt needed as the original ones did not flow well with our new editing and location. They made the clip appear unprofessional, so to over come our problem we made the credits in a much more simple style and layout. We tried a variety of fonts but decided to go with 'Baskerville'. This font style was eye catching and easy for the audience to read when quickly viewed. We chose a black outline and white font, hoping to portray the idea of the man always being around Rosie and secretly following her which is why the black outer line is narrow. The white font colour signifies the purity of the girl Rosie and her innocent naivety. The choice of black for the outer line to show the mans dangerous behavior and creepy characteristics.We used a bold font for 'Rosie' as the title of the film, we needed it be central and different to the rest of the fonts used in the credits etc.

Change of sound

My evaluation :
The soundtrack used in the opening sequence is called 'Suspense 1'. We felt as a group this fitted well with the clip as it built up the suspense and made it clear for the audience to recognize something bad was about to arise. The use of this soundtrack playing at the beginning gives a great impact, creating a strong enigma, and surreal atmosphere, putting the audience at edge as they are able to understand the stereotypical build up to something bad in this horror opening. We also decided to add in another sound that we found from previous research relating to our planning, it was a slowed down version of 'Ring around the roses'. This soundtrack added in helped further push forward our storyline. As it is slowed down it adds more drama, with a ghostly affect harmonising the slowed down camera affect of the three girls skipping in a circle. As the clip continues, shortly after the ring around the roses has been playing we are then playing another soundtrack of a music box, this is normally affiliated with the horror genre, a good example of the music box soundtrack being used is 'Woman In Black'. The music box soundtrack was also a good connection to childhood and children portraying youth, contrasting with the overlapping sinister cry of a child still clues the audience that something bad is coming for Rosie.

Mollie Knapps Evaluation:

We used a sound called 'Suspense 1' that we found to use as a overall sound playing throughout the opening to creates suspense and highlight that something is going to go wrong. The use of it playing throughout the opening impacts the whole opening as it creates an illusion and is a constant reminder that something is not right and something is going to go wrong. Another sound we used was from our previous research which was a slow version of 'Ring around the roses' this was because our genre was horror and the voice that it is sung by is ghostly and haunted. This creates a eerie atmosphere especially with the harmonising slow motion movement of the children playing. Also a sound we used was a music box this is because it is associated with the horror genre for example in 'Woman in black' the sound is used to create a ghostly feel to the film. Music boxes are also associated with childhood and children showing innocence and youth but with the creepy crying sound of a child it makes the audience feel uncomfortable and they are aware something is coming for Rosie.

Molly Hetherington

Molly Hetherington

Decisions towards our final piece

(All completed as a group- however I changed and re wrote some areas- Molly Hetherington)
After all having a group discussion about all of our ideas, together we came up with the following. 

Deciding that all of these work best with the genre of our opening title. I then took it upon myself to develop from our notes and write this post of our final decisions

In the opening titles of the film 'The Lovely Bones' we like the way the scene started off with them talking together and their positioning, therefore we would like to do a similar set up including over the shoulder shots. 

Although this is a trailer we can still see that dark nature of the girl. In our opening title we want to create a similar set up but our roles are reversed with the little girl being the victim and our male being the one who is the villian, almost wanting to feel loved. We also like how she looks girly however she has dark clothing we want to reverse this, with our character still wearing a dress but of pale colours. This will suggest purity. 

To get the best possible opening scene for our horror/thriller movie we decided to do as much research as possible. We looked at various different film opening titles including Se7en, Orphan, Tears and The lovely bones. Many more were included however we found that these worked the best and gave us the best ideas.  Therefore we based our research on thriller and horror movies.

Lighting- In all the opening titles that we have watched, the main theme throughout is using low-key lighting. Therefore as a group we have come to a decision that we would like to use this too due to the effect that it creates. With a sense of mystery creating tension and adding to the danger. We have also decided on using a black screen when showing the titles, this is because it breaks up the video images, making the audience want to see more and giving them a short break to digest what they have already seen. This is also similar to what has been created in the film ‘Se7en’. We found that it worked well towards the audience, adding to the tension. The font used for these titles is going to be very child like, due to the nature of the film. Childs writing is of a 9 year olds girl, so therefore it has not been fully developed yet and is not full sophisticated. Although the font is similar to the one used in ‘Se7en’ we have developed on this, our film is of a similar nature however ours involves a child, we want to make this very clear in our 2 minute opening title scene. We our going to create this lighting by using lights that shine away from the camera and trying to film our scene in the early evening/ late afternoon.

Setting- For the setting we have decided to focus it in a shed or what they audience to be a house of some sort. We thought that using the shed would suggest that he is keeping it from his private life, suggesting that he has two sides to his character. The shed that we are using is very similar to a wendy house therefore it is very child like. This helps to draw the audience in just like the character.  We have easy asses to this location so not only will it be easy for us to film in but to also create the correct effect and scene that is appropriate for our genre. The lighting will connotate the sense of darkness and nature to the setting. In the film ‘Se7en’ the audience can only assume where the scene has been created and we thought that this would be a good idea in creating our scene, due to the freaky nature that we would like to portray.

Costume- We want to keep our costumes quite simple and basic, as we don’t want to take any attention away from the film action. However we want the little girl to look vulnerable and her age, we thought a dress would be good for this. Showing her girly nature. The creators of Orphan have also put the girl in a dress, and dress her in a girly nature, this helps her to appear younger. We then want our main character, the male to look casual suggesting that this a casual thing for him something that he does regularly suggesting that he is used to it and that this isn’t the first time. We also want to keep them dark, due to his dark and psychopathic nature. We do not know what the actor in the ‘Se7en’ is wearing therefore we don’t focus our attention on this, taking nothing away from what the scene creates. Almost wanting to know what he is wearing. The use of normal clothing suggests that the audience feel that they can trust him due to him looking normal, the audience can then also relate to the girl Rosie trusting him.

Props- For our main prop we want to use a book, this is similar to the one used in ‘Se7en’. We want it to include nursery rhymes along with pictures of the little girl who we are going to make clear her name is ‘Rosie’. Showing that he has watched the girl grow up, following her. This will then link to the other prop that we want to use which is of a Rose, connotating the name used and the main nursery rhyme, which will be ‘Ring a ring a roses’, we have decided to use this our non digetic music. We are going to create the book ourselves. This book will also show other victims, as we want the opening titles to state that is was ‘1 year ago’, a past event. All these props are easily available to us and we believe they will work well with the scene and atmosphere. We also want to introduce the girl’s favorite teddy, showing her age, we can then link it to a picture of Rosie holding the teddy bear. The use of coloring books and games will also help to show her age. 

Body Language- In the opening titles of ‘Se7en’ we don’t see the actors face, this is similar to what we want to do as we liked the effect that it created, of him being unknown to people and adding the other side of his personality. We also believe that filming close up’s of the actors hand will make the action seem real and create mystery. We also want to do a over the shoulder shot of the man, with a straight and upright position signifying that he is confident in what he is doing. We want the girl to also appear comfortable in his character suggesting that this isn’t the first time that they have been together, showing that she is comfortable around him and therefore doesn’t feel threatened. The close up of his hand will also show his lack of nerves and confidence in the way that it wont shake. We also want the girl to look happy with a smile on her face, showing that she is happy around him and does not know of is creepy nature and what he is really doing, she thinks it is all normal.

Positioning on the frame- We wanted the main character of the male to be in the middle of the frame most of the time, this shows that he is the main character and that this is only one side of his personality. We then also want to use the rule of thirds showing that he is focusing on Rosie, not taking his attention away from her. 

Script

Molly Hetherington

Script

Choosing wether to have diegetic sounds or not in our horror opening sequence was a big decision this is because the sound is a important part of the opening and it can change the mood completely, it can make a film seem more realistic, especially in horror films. We have decided that we are not going to use diegetic sounds as after researching into other horror films we felt it created much more suspense when using sounds of rustling as it plays on the fear of someone stalking and following you and other sounds that create a much bigger impact than voice would. Using non-diagetic sounds allows the audience to focus on whats going on not what they just missed the character say, it draws them in and intrigues them as they focus whats going on in the frame building more suspense for when something shocking happens creating fear 

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Todorov's Narrative Theory

(Molly Hetherington)
1. A state of equilibrium to at the start
2. A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. There's a recognition that there has been a disruption.
4. There is an attempt to restore the disruption.
5. Equilibrium is reinstated.