the final sequence

This is my final sequence that I shot and edited. This is the final product from my production process that I have used this blog to document.

CCR task 4 - How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

https://williamnorstrand.wixsite.com/will-norstrand---ccr this is the link to my wix website on CCR task 4 

I made a Wix website to address the question of "How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?". 

CCR task 3 - "how did your production skills develop throughout this project"

 

here is a prezi presentation for CCR task 3 with the title of "how did your production skills develop throughout this project". I made this by myself using my blog post links from before to aid my explanations. This prezi was made to address the question 

CCR task no.2 - How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

I made this blog post as well as a poster to address the question of "How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?".

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The age rating for my opening sequence is a 15. My target audience is primarily males who are 15+ (the target audience age is around 20- 25). 

what is included in the sequence that our target audience would like/ be engaged by:

• female characters (stereotypically men are attracted to women)
• violence (men are associated and typically enjoy violence)
• thriller conventions (after all it is a thriller)
• kills 

a blog post where I talked about my target audience is: https://williamnorstranda1media.blogspot.com/2022/03/target-audience.html

quote from the blog post:

- it is suitable for children 15+ years old
- things can't be shown in graphic detail

a blog post where I looked at the BBFC (the people who give out the age certificates to movies and other video media: https://williamnorstranda1media.blogspot.com/2022/03/bbfc.html. This allowed me to be able to understand a little more on how our sequence would get an age certificate.

The film can have an age certificate of a 15 as the violence isn't shown in graphic detail and as a production group we believe that our movie would be suitable for an audience of 15 years old and above 

I made a blog post on the genre of the sequence and compared the idea we had with other media products that were in the same genre as ours:https://williamnorstranda1media.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-groups-genre.html

i compared our media product to:

• the hunt 
• ready or not 
• squid game 
• battle royale

i used the research into similar products to gain some conventions of the genre and was able to see if we were applying the right conventions 

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moment 1:

The murder of the first girl 

murder in films can be seen as cool to guys as stereotypically males enjoy violence, both doing it and also watching it. The violence of watching a murder take place in the opening to a movie engages the males making them want to watch more scenes of people getting killed and any other similar violent scenes. 

moment 2:

The main girl is introduced 

Most males are are attracted to females. Using a model as the main character would be engaging to the target audience as the males would want to carry on watching the film so that they can look at the pretty girl more. The pretty girl is used to bring in the audience. 

having a female as the main character will engage the audience as even though she is not objectified males are likely going to want to watch a movie which has the main character of a girl so that they can look at a girl for A whole movie. Her being a model means that she is conventionally attractive which means that it is more likely for a male to want to watch a movie based around this girl. 

However, having the girl as a main character can also be engaging for a female audience. Having the main character being a girl makes females want to see it as they can see a girl as the main role, the focus of the narrative. 

moment 3:

suspenseful moment 

Suspense is one convention that is most commonly used to engage the audience in many movies and many different genres. The use of the suspenseful scenes makes the target audience engaged to the scene making them want to see what happens next in the scene (will the person get found). 

moment 4:

Cliff hanger 

Roland Barthe's theory of enigma code is used as in the sequence there is a cliff hanger at the end as the audience is left wondering what will the girl (main character) do next. This is engaging to the target audience as cliff hangers make the audience want to find out what is next so carry on watching. 

moment 5:

Chase sequence 

a chase sequence can build suspense in the sequence. This suspense in the scene makes it more engaging to the audience. Putting it right at the start of the sequence emphasises the suspense even more. Blumler and Katz theory of "uses and gratification" fits in which this moment as the audience can get immersed into the action to escape reality for a while

moment 6:

The change of power (the main character kills the hunter)

Blumler and Katz theory of "uses and gratification" fits in which this moment as the audience can imagine themselves in a way of gaining power over what is trying to "hunt them down". This could be that they are bullied/ harassed or have a very stressful work. The movie would be a way of escaping reality and also imagining them gaining the power to defeat their "hunters".

having the girl kill the hunter and have power over. him will also engage a female audience as it helps to show women empowerment. Women would want to see a movie which shows a woman in a powerful role and have status. they want to see women empowerment

In conclusion I believe that my group and I were successful in using conventions to engage our target audience. The conventions of creating suspense in the scene is used effectively as it is the main in which audiences, especially our target audience, can be engaged. However, I believe that we could have used some more convention/ done other things to improve on how we engage our target audience an any other people consuming our media. I think that we could have hinted a bit more to the narrative to make audiences more excited to carry on watching the rest of the movie. Hinting to the narrative is another convention which helps to really engage the audience.

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My poster for "This is the day"

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The woods 

The use of the woods in the poster can be used to suggest the setting that the movie will be set in. This will help the audience (especially for the target audience) to get an idea of what the movie will be about. The woods in the background can connote that the setting of the film will solidly/ mostly be set in the woods. These woods could be the exact woods where the film is set. 

age rating (the 15 age certificate)

Having the age certificate of a 15 allows the audience to assume/ guess what kinds of things that they could see while watching the movie. using my blog post on target audience: https://williamnorstranda1media.blogspot.com/2022/03/target-audience.html there are specific things/ conventions associated with the certain age certificates. The target audience would know what to expect. This age rating will determine if audiences will want to see it or not.

Blumhouse sign & "a Blumhouse production"

Blumhouse productions is a production company which has released lots of different films that the target audience may have liked: the purge movies, happy death day, the hunt and many others. The target audience will see that the movie is produced by the same company of some of the movies they really enjoy. This will likely make them want to watch the movie.

4 actors names 

having the names of the main actors on the poster can help boost audience views. This is due to people knowing of actors who are in other films they may like. If they like the performances of the actors in. other movies they may want to watch the film due to the reason of the audience wanting to see the actors performance in this film.

The name of all the crew 

famous editors, DOPs and other famous film making positions would be shown here. Some editing and art direction in movies is appealing/ liked by some audiences and they would want to watch films containing the people who do these roles in a special/ unique way. These crew members can boost consumption/ watching of the film.

"a film by Iris woods"

This is the director of the film. Some famous directors like Steven Spielberg direct movies which people really enjoy. Some audiences start to watch all of the film that the director directs even if its a genre that is not so enjoy by them. using the director on the posters allows the target audience to see the director of the movie which could cause an increase in audience due to some audiences liking the work of some directors.

"see in cinemas March 10th"

very close to the date of when the hunt was released (the hunt was released on 11th of March). The hunt was a successful movie in the box office. It can be suggested that the release date was a good release date to make a good revenue. For the target audience they will have limited time.

"from the producers of the hunt"

The hunt is a very popular movie with lots of audiences/ people watching it and also enjoying. The producers are Blum house productions which is the same as the hunt but adding this onto the poster adds more. As people may like the hunt they could want tho watch this film as well as they could believe that it will be as engaging and enjoyable as the hunt.

The 2 clothings for the girl 

The 2 clothings on the girl in the poster suggest the 2 types of "lives" of the girl in this movie. Audiences could be engaged by this as they would want to know why she has 2 different outfits on. It could suggest many things. getting the audience to question what the movie could show will help to build an audience for the movie as well as build anticipation for the movie.

the girl being the only character on the poster 

As our target audience is males having a girl on the poster will help to engage the audience. stereotypically men like women. Having a woman on the poster will engage the audience by making the audience believe that we will fallow a woman through the movie (which they are right about) that they can "dreamy eyes" to.

no mouth 

The lack of a mouth for the girl in the poster can suggest her having no say in what is happening. This can suggest abduction/ kidnapping. This can engage the audience as kidnapping/ abduction is always suspense and the building of suspense is one of the key things that helps to engage audience. 

the title 

The title can show a lot of things. For example the way that the title is placed around her head along with the colour and slight glow can connote it being like a halo. From John Fisk's theory of denotation and connotation with the halo like title and the connotation being the girl being like an angel in a way. The angel connotation can suggest her being the hero of the narrative. Devils connote evilness so if she had horns then she could be connoted as the villain.

"the night that will never be forgotten"

This quote can suggest to the audience that the movie could all be set in the night or something life changing could happen on one of the nights in the film. This simply quote will get audiences engaged as they will want to know what happened in the narrative which is so life changing that it "will never be forgotten".

the titles being white

the colour white is simplistic and helps not to distract away from everything else (the more important things) in the poster.

eye 

one of the eyes of the girl looks like it is a black eye. This can suggest that a fight/ violence will occur in the movie. This can engage our target audience as our target audience being men who stereotypically like violence. This will engage them as they would want to see violence in the movie. However, this is just smudged make-up like we see her in the opening sequence.

releasing in a cinema 

releases in the cinemas is a vital for the filmmakers to make the most revenue but also allows the audiences to have a cinematic experience while watching the movie. This cinematic experience can help to boost emotions about the film from audiences. This can lead to better reviews which can boost the number of audiences. 

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the studio that I think would release my movie would be Blumhouse production. I chose this studio as it was the studio that released the hunt. As our film is very similar to the hunt I believe that it would be a film that would fit in with what Blumhouse productions releases.

some of the media products they have released:

1. The hunt 

- released in 2020 

- age certificate = 15

- action, thriller, horror 

2. MA

- released in 2019 

- age certificate  = 15 

- mystery, horror, thriller 

3. The purge (and all the other purge movies after it)

- released in 2013

- age certificate = 15 

- thriller, horror, sci-fi

4. Happy death day 

- released in 2017

- age certificate = 15

- comedy, horror, mystery 

about the studio:

- American Tv and film company

- founded in 2000

- founded by Jason Blum

-horror movies mostly 

- original ideas 

- the movies are based on something in society or have a theme to them 

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the hunt 

- released in cinemas on 11 March 2020

- released onto Netflix on 6 February 2022

- budget was $14 million 

- the hunt was available digitally on 20 March 2020

- in March 2019 top billed cast was announced 

- many different posters released 

- one of the youtube trailers has 14.8+ million views 

- they used their official site for advertisement

- the hunt used twitter to advertise 

the release date 

As stated in the poster the film would be released in cinemas 10 March. This is similar to when the hunt released their movie in cinemas. However the hunt was released during the pandemic so the cinemas got closed for a bit so the revenue wasn't what it should have been. If our movie was release it would probably do as well as the hunt. it can be suggested that its a good time to release a movie. 

streaming services 

Blumhouse productions releases its films on Netflix. For our film we would release our film onto netflix. We would release the film maybe release earlier than when the hunt was released to Netflix. We would maybe put it onto streaming services a year after the cinema release so other services, like amazon prime and other film services can be used to make revenue. The American streaming shudder which releases horror movies could also be a streaming service that could be used to stream our movie. 

marketing 

Like Blumhouse did when marketing our film we could mention the top billed cast to build a demand for the film as marketing is the building of awareness and demand for a media product. Our target audience who would enjoy the cast would want to watch the film if they knew if there were any actors that they think are cool or attractive.

like almost all film companies do we would release trailers (teaser, main, short, etc) and also release lots of different posters to get lots of demand and awareness for the film.

we would also use other social medias to post about the film where our target audience will be as the generation is stuck to social media.

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distribution chain 

the hunt 

1. released in cinemas on 11 March 2020
2. released onto Netflix on 6 February 2022
3. the hunt was available digitally on 20 March 2020

This is the day 

1. released in cinemas on 10 March 
2. Available digitally on 10 April (after 4 weeks of cinema run)
3. released onto Netflix on 1 July (3 months after digital release)

release into cinemas

the film would be released in cinemas 10 March. This is similar to when the hunt released their movie in cinemas. However the hunt was released during the pandemic so the cinemas got closed for a bit so the revenue wasn't what it should have been. If our movie was release it would probably do as well as the hunt. it can be suggested that its a good time to release a movie. the timing for a movie to be released in cinemas is vital to earning as much revenue as possible. If a movie is released into cinemas at the wrong time it can cause a lack of revenue coming in. This can mean that money can be wasted and not much revenue will be received.

release digitally 

releasing the movie digitally 4 weeks after the movie is released in cinemas is the amount of time that the movie will have in cinemas. After the movie is stopped showing in cinemas the audience can then buy the movie digitally as they can't watch it in cinemas anymore. Cinemas earn the most revenue for film makers so the filmmakers want to earn the most revenue by waiting for the 4 weeks to go by before releasing the movie digitally. 

releasing onto Netflix 

The second best way of earning revenue is by releasing the movie digitally. leaving 3 months before releasing the movie onto Netflix leaves 3 months for people to buy the movie digitally. Netflix is not the best way of earning revenue. Filmmakers want to earn the most revenue so they will try and get people to buy it earlier than later in the distribution chain. 

CCR task no.1 - how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

this is the presentation i made for my CCR task 1. The question asked in this task was "how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues".

post production: pt2

In the lesson on Thursday we took away the shots of Daisy running between trees and edited it to her at the hiding to the tree she hides behind from Mike. We edited those bits out as we thought it too much time and wasn't interesting. We also thought that it didn't give much to the scene and we didn't need it. The edited version is just as good than the edited version with the taken out shots. Maybe even better. 

We used the shot of the camera panning from Mike walking across a tree to show daisy hiding and making the weapon (putting the rocks in the sock). Showing how close the hunter is to seeing the girl shows the danger she is in. This helps to build tension and suspense in the sequence.

Another shot that builds tension and suspense is when we edited the hunter to look at the tree Daisy is behind and her have to quickly hide behind the tree. How we edited these shots together helps to build the suspense in the sequence. 

On Thursday when only me and Daisy (the one in our group not the actress) were there we got the audio from the built in microphone and the directional microphone and picked which one of them was best then deleted the one we didn't like. We copied the one we liked and placed it where the audio we didn't like was originally placed. We then added constant power and constant to transition from one audio to the other so it didn't sound weird as the shots didn't all sound the same. 

In free time I worked on the audio that we couldn't find on the day or audio that we filmed that needed to be improved. 

audio I added/ enhanced:

• I added a gun shot to the sequence - as we couldn't actually shoot a gun in the sequence and we also couldn't record us shooting a gun I had to find gun shot audio in the library of sounds on the computer. I added these as we needed to hear a gun shot so we know why Zaza fell to the ground in the sequence.

• I added a knife cut to the edit - As when Zaza was getting killed it was very quiet we had to add a sound of a knife cutting so it sounded like Zaza's throat was being slit. We might not have had to add this is Zaza made a loud scream/ noise but as she didn't we had to fill in the silence which made it feel off. 
• I added footsteps of walking in a forest to the sequence - in the sequence you can hear the hunters walking but i added foot step sounds of someone walking in the forest to enhance the footstep which also gets the audience to focus on them as it helps to build tension.

• I added thuds to when the hunter was being hit by the weapon and the gun butt - As the weapon didn't have real rocks in it it didn't make a noise when Mike's head was hit with it. In real life if they were real rocks it would have made a noise. To make it feel more real i added in thuds for when he is hit to make the weapon sound more real. I changed the thuds from the hitting Mike with the weapon to hitting him with the end of the gun. I added a heavy sounding thud for the gun end hitting Mike.
• I made the breathing of Daisy when we first meet her louder so that the Audience focuses on her breathing so that we can tell how she is feeling/ her emotions in the situation she is in. The breathing helps to emphasise her emotions in the scene. 

I changed the volume of the sounds to make them sound more realistic

problems in the audio was that sometimes the audio was too loud so we would have to adjust it so that it wasn't so loud. Sometimes the audio was too quiet so we would have to adjust the audio to be louder so you could hear it. 

The fast cuts between shots is a convention of an action movie which are sequence's genre is action thriller. Our target audience being people who like actions and thrillers would enjoy the sequence as it has lots of conventions of action thrillers.

the conventions:

- it was action filled (convention of an action)

- it had weapons in it [the gun and the knives] (convention of actions and thrillers)

- it had fights in it (conventions of actions and thrillers)

- it contained a cat and mouse chase (conventions of a thriller)

- there was lots of tension and suspense (conventions of a thriller)

- the sequence contained a murder (conventions of a thriller)

suspense in a film/ tv show/ sequence can make it very gripping and make the audience want to carry on watching so they can find out what happens. In our sequence there is lots of tension which helps to keep the sequence entertaining for the audience. 

we spent Fridays lesson working on naming and putting the titles into the sequence

the titles we picked:

- the title of the movie 

- the director 

- the money/ finance for the movie

- the studio 

we used pre-made templates of the titles in a title sequence to create out titles. We picked the colour of the titles to be yellow as it looks really cool and it can connote happiness. This it opposed in the sequence as there is no positive things happening.

The title of the film is:

"This is the day"

We edited so that the title comes on word by word rather than all at once. This makes the title more dramatic and cooler.

On Thursdays lesson we added one little soundtrack to the start of the sequence where Zaza is being chased by the hunters. On Friday's lesson we composed a soundtrack for our sequence. Cole made the soundtrack while we carried on editing the sounds and the titles for our sequence. On Mondays lesson we put the sound track onto the sequence and found out that it didn't fit the theme/ tone that we wanted for the sequence. It was too calm. We spent the activities on Monday adding another soundtrack onto the sequence. We originally had 2 soundtracks but we ended up making the second soundtrack be played throughout the whole sequence. Having one continuous soundtrack sound much better and make the sequence much better because the two soundtracks clashed and made the tone of the sequence be really confusing. We chose the soundtrack as it fit the tone of the sequence very well and helped to improve the sequence and make it even better than it originally was. We changed the volume of the soundtrack at certain points to make sound effects and sounds more impactful and the soundtrack would have taken the focus away. the drums at the end of the soundtrack hits when the hunters head gets hit for the last time which stops the soundtrack where there is no soundtrack again in the rest of the sequence. The drums emphasise the whack from the weapon. 

we didn't include any effects onto our sequence 

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I think that our final opening sequence looks very good. Even though we have some things that we are not a super fan of and things that we can improve i still think that the final result is much better than i thought i would be able to produce. 

One thing that we could have improved is the shot of when Zaza gets her throat slit. In that shot we were only able to do once because of the fake blood when the hunter brings the knife across her neck the knife can clearly be seen bending. I think that we should have done that shot like the real shot but without the fake blood recorded it and then watched the footage back on the day (even though its a rule that you don't do that) so that we could find any problems that happened, like the knife bending, and fix the problem for when we record with the fake blood. 

All the actors were very good at acting which helped the sequence to look really good. if you have a bad actor in the sequence it can end up making the sequence look bad and not professional. just one person can bring the whole sequence down. The fact that all of our actors acting really well made the sequence look really good and give the right tones.

post production: pt1

Just over a week after we filmed our opening sequence we got to start the editing of our opening sequence. As i was the editor/ the main editor i edited the most. the only time i wasn't editing was the few times i wasn't there are at least one of the members of the group was at the computer. 

On the Monday of our 1 week of editing we spent the lesson looking through all of our footage. We labeled the footage we liked and didn't name the footage we didn't want to use. We created 5 bins are moved the footage into the bin they were meant to be in.

the bins we had were:

1. Zaza (girl 1) - where were put all of girl 1's shots 
2. Daisy (girl 2) - where we put all of Daisy's shots
3. Stuart (hunter 2) - where we put all of Stuarts' shots
4. Mike (hunter 1) - where we put all of Mike's shots
5. girl 3 - where we put all of girl 3's shots  

We then came back the next day in our lesson and started to edit the footage (just the picture bit of it) and put it into the order we wanted to so that we could create the story we wanted and also build tension in the sequence. We spent 2 lesson and free time editing the video side of the sequence. 

When were looking through the footage and got to the one shot we had of Mike killing Zaza we realised that he put a little too much force on the knife so it can clearly be seen bending which can break the atmosphere of the sequence slightly. We did not take anymore shots of the killing of Zaza so we had to keep this shot in the scene. 

in shots that go after each other the continuity was sometimes messed up due to the hunters holding the shotgun the other way to which they were holding it in the previous shot. To fix it we had to edit it in a way to make it look like they were able to switch the gun in their hands without it just suddenly changing hands.

we chose to take out the shot of Stuart walking out of the starts of our sequence as we thought that it didn't really work as being the opening shot of the sequence. It instead starts straight into the action of Zaza running away from the hunters and getting shot and killed. the shot of Stuart walking though the forest is too peaceful where were want our sequence to open up on a hectic and action filled shot. We chose to not add this shot in the sequence as the only place it would fit is at the start and we don't want it there so were just didn't include it. 

We filmed a shot were we panned across the trees then tilted down to look at the girl running where we panned to follow her running. This shot suggested at the start a calm forest but after tilting down we see that the forest is chaotic. We didn't end up using this shot as we didn't like how the pan to tilt to pan looked. We thought it made the shot look really bad. If we used this it could have made the sequence look bad. We would have used this at the start of the sequence but Zaza running in a different shot is a better than this shot.