Our production is based around a psychopath who intently schemes a murder and aims to frame it as a suicide. The film will follow the countdown of this conspiratorial event; demonstrating the manifest behind this psychopath as he fixates his time to covering his tracks. The narrative will look attentively at the confederates and accomplices in association to this clandestine predicament. As well as focusing on the conspiratorial aspects, the film will also follow the psychological aspects of paranoia and distrust rendered in the mind of the psychopath.
0 Comments
It is evident that through the lack of special effects and advanced equipment that we want to distribute a low-budget production and I feel that our opening sequence may attract a more niche audience (although we did try to target a wider audience) and so an independent distributor would be more likely to distribute our production as oppose to a conglomerate. However, with the help of independent distributors we may be able to access the benefits of marketing and ways of consumption that conglomerates offer and some independent distributors are owned by conglomerates. However, due to the low budget, we still have the possibilities of distributing through the internet to create a hype in the same way that Paranormal Activity did. Paranormal Activity first previewed online to gather feedback on the success of the film and after receiving phenomenal reviews, they then decided to distribute through cinemas which is where most of the profit is made.
“The film collaborative” are also a way of distribution as they offer independent film companies access to film distributors. TFC offers independent film companies a full range of education about distribution, marketing services and distribution services. These include services such as sales representation, service theatrical releases, hybrid distribution, grassroots marketing, traditional marketing, digital aggregation, distribution consultation and contract consultation. Through this process I feel we would be more appreciative and educated in the distribution and marketing of a film and possibly even reach a higher rate of success. I also think that our production should only be distributed nationally to achieve maximum success as other conglomerates may internationally distribute their productions which would lessen the popularity of ours. Here are some examples of films that TFC have helped to distribute and market:
Some small independent distributors that may be willing to distribute our production would be: Rumur, Breaking Glass Productions, Deep Focus Productions and Cinema Epoch as they are all small distributors and prod cures who specialise in independent films and a love for film making.
Our film opening for ‘Hidden Within’ abides by the stereotypical codes and conventions of a horror/psychological thriller. Before the production, we looked at various different film openings, one of them being the film opening for ‘Se7en’ which we used as inspiration throughout our production. ‘Se7en’ follows generic codes and conventions of psychological thriller openings which is why we focused our attention on this film opening. It consists of all the major connotations of a psychological/horror by creating an eerie atmosphere with the use of distressed non-diegetic music music, close-ups, fast duration edits and low-key lighting; we tried to reconstruct all of these factors in our production, and I personally felt that we were successful in this. We aimed to have a very prominent, strong microelement throughout our production to abide by typical representations and conventions of this genre and we felt we were very successful in this as we not only had very rich mise-en-scene, but we were also able to incorporate very pungent, intense and dynamic non-diegetic music as well. I feel that we were able to create music that not only fit the genre of the opening sequence, but it also builds a narrative with the different tempos and volumes of sounds. I feel that we incorporated many different small stereotypical factors such as low-key lighting, quick duration edits and close ups which all come together to create a bigger picture of a stereotypical psychological thriller. I also feel that our production follows all the stereotypical codes and conventions of a psychological thriller except for one aspect that we felt was necessary to challenge for market development and to attract a wider target audience. Horror and psychological thrillers typically use old, creepy, ugly men to act as the stalker/psychopath, however we wanted to challenge this and use a younger, attractive man to appeal to a wider target audience. Title sequences typically act as a prime opportunity to introduce main characters and display their traits however our opening sequence only introduces two of the main characters that are easily distinguishable between which challenges typical opening sequences.
Looking back at our preliminary task, it is clear that our understanding of camera and editing skills has improved vastly. To start with, we had very little knowledge of the programmes we needed to use for example final cut pro and garage band. We also needed a variety of different camera angles in order to get a high grade in our production. Our preliminary allowed us to experiment using the angles we learnt such as 180 degree angle, shot reverse shot, match on action and rule of thirds. Using these techniques, it really helped us with our final piece.
When planning the protagonist, location and equipment for Hidden Within, we took time and care by researching many opening sequences to inspire us. Se7en was a huge influence on our production as it gave us an understanding of what we wanted to produce. During our planning process, we carried out research by using surveys on our target audience to find out what elements they liked about our preliminary which helped us gain an understanding of what to include in our production. They also looked at our synopsis of Hidden Within which explained our plot which assisted us in making improvements with their feedback. In our final production we ensured that our characters were represented accurately to fit their role. Our protagonist was dressed in black clothing to create enigma and a dark atmosphere. This juxtaposed with our antagonist as she was dressed in youthful, colourful clothing to connote vulnerability and to represent her as the victim. In our preliminary, we did not take as much time to think about the costume choice as it didn’t create the same intense vibe. We followed a similar storyline in the preliminary and from this we could decide areas of improvement for our final production. The protagonist was mostly shown in low key lighting which connoted mystery and enhanced shadowing for the same effect. The antagonist was shown in high key lighting to represent her as angelic and innocent. Our experience using final cut pro shows development when comparing our preliminary to our final production. Our understanding of how to show relationships and interactions through editing was greatly helped with the use of final cut pro. When making our preliminary, our understanding of final cut pro was not at the same level as it is now and I think this is proven in our final production. It took us a while to navigate ourselves around the programme but with help from our teacher and friends, we soon got the hang of it. This was the same with garage band however, it was easier to use and took us less time to get used to. When creating the opening tile sequence I had to render many different sources together being the downloaded un-copyrighted video of the smoke, the 'Echo Studios' logo and the none-diegetic distrusting sound. I did this using Final Cut Express. After playing around with different sizes of the video of smoke, to make it fit the frame appropriately, I added in the other elements. I wanted to create a simplistic opening for the institution but still ensure it reflected the style/genre of films it produced and so i felt that the smoke with the twisted filmstrip was simple yet gloomy, sinister and spectral. The simple monochrome colour palette is a recurring theme throughout our production and we felt it tied in nicely. After rendering all of the factors, I felt that the edit cuts were too sharp and so I played around with different transitioning tools to give a softer effect to mimic the smoke. I ended up using the 'Dip to Colour Dissolve' for a short while at the end and felt that this made the edit look much softer and professional. This is the final piece: I wanted to add movement to the institution logo to connote mystery and suspense to pre-empt the genre of our productions. I used smoke as I felt it has a wide connotation of mystery which is essential in psychological thrillers. It also suggests freedom, independence and indulgence.
After brainstorming many different props we could use for our production, we decided we had to narrow down the possibilities due to accessibility. We wanted to use the most common conventions of psychological thrillers and so we shortened the prop list to:
(all of these props will be printed out beforehand by us and will be used to stick on the wall)
Taking inspiration from other psychological, horror and crime thrillers and the codes and conventions used, we decided we needed to brainstorm a prop list in order to create effective mise-en-scene.
BBC showcased a series called 'Great TV Mistakes' which advocated my thoughts about our upcoming production in regards to the coherence of continuity in our production. The show consisted of pointing out "TV's worst blunders, gaffes and continuity errors" which will help me to consider even the slightest bungles in our production. The show also entailed bloopers, shots of camera crew and appearances of equipment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00trbz2 Thinking about our upcoming production, I felt that it was necessary to look further into the lives and interests of those of our target audience in order to gain a better idea of what to include in our production to engage the viewers. I brainstormed ideas of where these people would shop, spend their free time and even their music tastes. After doing so, I realised that the array of social demographic groups was vast. This lead me onto thinking about how the viewers would identify with certain characters in our production and the codes and conventions that need to correlate with the viewers interests.
|
Archives
February 2015
Categories
All
|