Bentley Priory Location Shots

Here is some location images which I found of where we will be filming at Bentley Priory Wood's. I took these photos and uploaded then onto 'Imgur'. From the pictures you can see that they are very conventional of a horror movie which helped us when constructing our narrative.

Ident Storyboard

When me and my group member had been doing some research into idents, we found that it was very conventional of a horror movie to have incorporated and ident, me and my group member took this into consideration and I decided to also create a storyboard of our ident for our opening sequence. This gave us a rough idea of the type of ident that we wanted and we used sources such as www.footagecrate.com in order to help us get the ident that we wanted. By creating a storyboard I found gave us a guideline of what we wanted and the type of imagery we would want to incorporate. Below is an image of the storyboard I created for our ident.

Ident Homework

Ident Homework

Here is the dictionary definition of an ident:

Ident’s are usually used in films in order to connote the production company of whom has produced the film, depending on the production company ident’s contain very distinctive features. The first ident I have chosen to research is ‘Working Title’  which is a British production company owned by the conglomerate Universal Studios. 
This is an animated ident which me and my partner Ishpreet may be considering to use for our ident, the ident is fairly simple with the use of dull colours such as blue and brown connote that the ident may be fairly old. As the ident is quite simple this may connote that they do not have such as a mass target audience compared to Lionsgate Productions. However the target audience would be based mainly in Britain as they do not tend to go as mainstream compared to American based production companies such as ‘Lionsgate’. This ident doesn’t appear to contain any music or sound, as it begins it starts with a drawing which then leads onto the main opening titles, this could signify the process of the ident going from an independent production company to a conglomerate or may have significance. Me and my partner are still negotiating whether to include music into our ident or way may just interpret natural sounds and keep it quite simple. The Working Title ident doesn’t appear to give away the type of genre that it is representing, this could leave the audience questioning as to the film that they will be watching. Typically for horror genres the ident would usually appear to incorporate some use of blood or gore so as our opening sequence is only 2 minutes long we will make sure that our ident helps denote the genre of our film.


Lionsgate
The second ident I have chosen to research is 'Lionsgate' they are a very popular and well known production company and they have produced a variety of very popular films such as 'SAW' and the record breaking 'Twilight Saga'. They have created films from very different genres however when it comes to creating our ident I will be making sure I try and include some similar conventions from their horror ident. The clip I have chosen to use is for the horrow genre of films and I have chosen this one as I will be creating a horror opening with my partner.

From the 'horror' ident above I gathered that there was a large use of rustic metal bolts this could be to connote a typical horror convention as being quite old and ragged. The use of the visual connotes a brown colour to connote quite a dull atmosphere to the audience which reinforces the genre of the film, in the ident we see the two metal doors open which then goes to show the rustic bolts transform into normal shiny ones, this could be used to connote the difference in genres which they produce. The use of the translucent typography of the caption 'LIONSGATE' is embedded onto a dark red clouds which could represent the use of blood which is commonly used in horror films.

The use of the red clouds could use suggest a use of hell or danger which is a common statement used with this colour, this reinforces its target audience that the film may contain very typical horror conventions such as blood and gore. The target audience for this type of ident would either be a 15+ or 18+ this would depend on what is usually incorporated into the film.

Lionsgate also have another ident in which they use for their other genres of film, the ident appears to be quite similar to the horror one, this ident begins with the camera panning across similar bolts which is also used in the horror genre one however in this one they appear to be much more clear and shiny. The ident then zooms into the opening doors and similarly we see the typography of 'LIONSGATE' in a Sanserif font which is also embedded onto a set of clouds. The use of the blots and knots all structured together could be used to connote the themes of power and strength in which they have earned from creating such succesful films. The use of the bolts moving in unison could also be used to denote that they are continuously growing and producing more and more films.

Bolts are also used to connote quite hard working jobs and is usually used by strong males, this could be used to suggest the amount of hard-working and effort that they put into producing there films and the use of the heavenly image could be used to connote their final product. This also suggests that in order to get a successful final  piece you have to go through all the hard work in order to complete a high standard final piece, while studying media at A-Level I learned that to create a successful final piece we have to go through a large use of research and planning in order to get our opening sequence to the best of our ability which could also be what Lionsgate is trying to signify.

Step Outline

As for this task me and my group member were asked to analyse the use of editing, camera work, sound and how the shot changes. We both chose a different horror film to analyse the first two minutes of and uploaded these onto Slideshare.

Here is the step outline I created for my horror film Silent Hill (2006) and I analysed the different shot types and how each shot includes a different use of the four micro elements. This also allowed me to see how they conformed to the horror genre in able to give me an my group member how we could use the similar ideas in our opening sequence. The step outline was also helpful as  it was a thorough into the movie and showed me that the opening sequence can play an important part to help summarise what the narrative is going to be about.

Below is the Step outline which my group member created for the horror film Scream, this allowed her to analyse how the woman plays the typical vulnerable victim which is convention in horror films and is also what we will be including in our opening sequence

Step outline from ishy96

Draft Film Pitch Feedback & Ammendments

After me and my partner had conducted our draft film pitch we then asked them to write their ideas on what they thought about it onto a 'Padlet' this helped us with our research as we wanted to make sure that we didn't incorporate anything that they didn't like into our opening sequence.
One person suggested that ''We have a lot going on make sure its clear'', taking this into consideration will we make sure that we have a set dialogue for each shot and that it is clear for our audience to understand. Also we must make sure that we are fully prepared on the day with everything that we need so that when it comes to filming it runs smoothly.

Another positive feedback that we got was that ''Really realistic narrative'' this was important to us as our target audience is going to be teenagers so in our film we will have the subject matter as being something in which our target audience can relate too.

Below is the 'Padlet' in which me and Ishpreet conducted together:

Created with Padlet

Certificate Ratings

Here I used slide share to help show our research about certificate ratings, we used this enable to help us with our horror opening that we will be creating as we need to understand the importance and difference of each rating. From conducting research I gathered the difference between each age rating and the laws and regulations of them, these are a very important part a film as the nature of horror films and there content can be quite graphic which many people would not want to see. We have to consider this when creating our opening sequence as our target audience would be for young adults and so by watching our opening sequence me and my partner would discuss what rating we would be able to consider. This will be important when completing our opening sequence as we will have to consider what age our target audience will be, we also had to discuss what would be included such as if we would use, blood, gore and violence as to whether we would need to make it a 15+ or 18+

Film Pitch

Me and my group member conducted a film pitch in order to layout the narrative and suggestions we had for our opening sequence. The film pitch shows the justifications of our ideas to connote to our audience why we have chosen to do specific things. We will also be able to refer to this frequently during our planning so that we can build on our specific ideas.

Film Pitch for Horror Film Titles Project

Title of Horror Film	Captured
Genre	Horror- subgenre thriller
Log Line	Two friends Tiffany and Gretchen return to the woods and are walking through it, as Tiffany wants to take pictures of Gretchen for her portfolio. Someone is watching closely from the distance, behind the trees. This was inspired by the woods concept within ‘Blair Witch Project’.
Synopsis	·      Starts off with a shot of the setting, with eerie music ·      Then we see Tiffany Woodcock and Gretchen Hornett examining their surroundings carefully, by walking slowly through the woods ·      Point of view shots are given from the perspective of the villain, who is watching them. This is accompanied by heavy breathing, and eerie music ·      Tiffany has brought Gretchen to the woods to take pictures from her Polaroid camera for her photography portfolio. They were there a week earlier taking photos, but Tiffany lost a few and has to start over. ·      Another shot from the villain, who is listening to the two talking and taking pictures. Begins to move around slightly which causes noise. ·      Tiffany and Gretchen hear this, and become more aware and fearful of their surroundings- they continue to take pictures ·      Tiffany runs out of film, and kneels down at her bag to refill it ·      Gretchen goes to check out another spot for better light ·      Tiffany begins to look over the pictures and thinks they will be great. However she looks closely and realises a strange black figure within the corner of a picture ·      She screams as she gets captured by the villain who was keeping a close eye on them THE REST OF THE FILM: ·      News of Tiffany’s kidnap and supposed death spreads, as Gretchen is left psychologically scarred ·      Later on a bunch of teenagers who went to a different school to Gretchen and Tiffany, decide to stay out in the woods as a group dare ·      Strange things begin to occur to them, as one by one the teenagers begin to get captured and brutally murdered ·      Only one survivor manages to escape, who is also left psychologically scarred
Resources needed -Camcorder -Tripod -Polaroid camera	Locations -Bentley Priory woods	Characters -Tiffany Woodcock -Gretchen Hornett       -Mysterious antagonist
Justification for ideas: The idea of teenager exploring the woods is conventional of a horror movie. This idea can link to the woods theme of horror movie ‘The Blair Witch Project’. Our target audience are mainly aged from 17-18. Due to this our two main characters in our horror movie opening are also of the same age range; therefore our audience will be able to relate to them.