My Final Post
I can’t believe this is my final post ever!!!
It has been a very long and interesting journey for me and I have learnt so much from it!
More importantly, I have had so much fun especially with the two loveliest group members ever Mel and Alice!
I will really miss working with you two…Thanks for being so great! Everyone else in our media classes including students, Miss Blackborow, Miss Thrasher and Mr Deans, have all been equally great and helpful...so Thank you all!
I will miss the good times I had during this project but it’s always good to move on, and I am especially looking forward to the next project, when we shall meet again =)

Bye for now =) xxx

This beautiful pink Blog is now closed.

Love you to Death

Cast
Laura Christofis -Killer Girlfriend

Barney Phillips -Victim Boyfriend

Crew
Produced, Directed, Edited, Sound and PA by
Mel Kannur Alice King and Aarti Diwan

Company Name

Perspective Productions

Locations
Filmed at:

Bush Hill Park, North London
House, Enfield, North London

Edited at:

The Latymer School, Edmonton, North London

Release Date:

13th January 2009

Denotation of the Opening Sequence
The Opening Sequence begins with a cross dissolve from black to an establishing LS of a house. It then cross-dissolves to Laura in the shower, followed by, an MCU of her feet stepping out the shower and picking her towel up.

This then cross-dissolves to a MCU pan of the dressing table followed by two shots of Laura walking out the bathroom with the use of match on action. Laura drops her towel and immediately we are introduced to the dual narrative with a VLS of Barney walking through the park.

There is continuous cross-cutting between the two characters to show that the two parallel narratives are connected. There is a CU of Barney’s feet, tilt shot from behind and a pan as he walks round the corner of the street.

Meanwhile we keep cross-cutting back to Laura’s montage of shots which consist of her tying her dress and finishing her lipstick.

The two characters then exchange a short phone-conversation after which Laura walks down the stairs which is made up of a MS shot of Laura walking out the room, a pan as she walks to the stair case, a CU of her feet going down, and a pan of her walking round the hallway. Each of these shots use matches on action, very much inspired by shots from 'The Ring' (Verbinski, 2002).

We then see a MS of Barney walking towards the door with two CUs of him ringing the doorbell and waiting at the door. In between we cross-cut to Laura lighting a candle for their romantic dinner and then her reaction shot to the doorbell.

The final shot is a slow pan of Laura picking up the knife.

Film Summary

Does she kill her boyfriend?

Yes, Laura does kill Barney, who is only one of the many guys she has killed before and she takes him to the basement where she has kept the rest of the men. Here we see the more gory and murderous aspects of the film. The story conventionally consists of a detective like in Seven (David Fincher, 1996) who comes to investigate the case of the missing males in the area. He falls in love with Laura who whilst trying to seduce him, also falls in love. This is where elements of romance will be incorporated in our film. She spends her time trying to hide her crimes from him.

The film will consist of flashbacks showing her childhood and the cause of her madness. The story goes that when she was younger, her brother was drowned in the sea back Greece, and she has always held his friend to blame for this incident. She remains silent about it for years, but when she moves to London she is taken over by a psychological disorder when memories of her brother return. She begins to date and kill anyone that looks like her brother’s friend, and ends up falling in love with the detective. When he eventually finds out about her crimes, she is faced by a dilemma...

Should she kill him too?

One of my favourite shots...

Laura- Striking the Match (1.25secs)

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film’s opening sequence conforms to the forms and conventions of both real film opening sequences as well as genre specific conventions of thriller/horror films through its simple yet enigmatic narrative, action codes and the overall slow paced editing style.

It begins by establishing the setting with an LS like many real film openings such as Cleaner (Renny Harlin, 2007), for example. It then goes on to introducing the main female character through a cut up montage of shots of her getting ready.

Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic, 2001)

-Our broken up montage sequence very much compares to the ‘Legally Blonde’ opening which also uses cross cutting between the girl getting ready indoors, and her cycling outdoors.

-We do not see her face and likewise, Laura’s face is not revealed until the near end.

Here we have used theorist Roland Bathes’ idea of the enigma code, where details of the story are held back in order to increase the effect of the final revelation. It also helps to build up suspense and captivates the audiences’ interests who maybe suspicious as to who she is.


Propps Theory

Being a thriller/horror, each of her shots signifies that she may be the victim or according to Propp’s theory the ‘princess’ character involved, who being home alone, needs protection from the villain, especially due to the sexually exposing shower shots which have been used in many thrillers since Psycho(Hitchcock, 1960). We challenged this genre convention by revealing the conventionally victimised female character to in fact be the villain or so called ‘psycho’ of our film, introducing a great twist to the story through this unconventional role reversal.

The themes of the film however remain conventional to the genre of thriller/horror films including:

-Revenge- wants to kill her boyfriend
-Psychiatric behaviour – Evident in the diologue ‘you’re two minutes late’
-Isolation -within the ordinary but empty house, a typical setting for a thriller
-Entrapment- Dark and enclosed areas of the house, feeling of entrapment is created through tight CUs of Laura as she gets ready which makes it feel like there isn't much space around her.

To make it look like more of an opening sequence rather than a trailer montage we:

- incorporated cross cutting between the two characters
- presented a parallel narrative
- used the idea of ellipses within the storyline for example in one shot she drops her towel and in the next she is tying her dress. Here we can assume that there was time in between where she put her dress on.
- We also incorporated a phone conversation indicating the continuation of the story line

Some of the more obvious elements that conform to real film openings include the use of:

- Credits maintained throughout the sequence introducing the cast and crew
- The production company name ‘Perspective Productions’ is conventionally mentioned at the beginning.

- An enigmatic title at the end in a sophisticated font to suit the style of the opening sequence
- Abandoned- the calm and mysterious soundtrack composed by Robert Davis- plays throughout the opening and fades away towards the end slowly taking the audience into the core of the film.

From the opening sequence it is evident that our film breaks the conventions of Todorov’s classic narrative pattern as it begins with disruption rather than equilibrium, which we see when the female picks up the knife within the first two minutes of the film’. Audience feedback shows that this has a lot of dramatic impact on our sequence and leaves them wanting to watch the rest of the film, and this is a function of an opening sequence.

Iconography

Our opening sequence also establishes the core iconography set around the house through the consistently red mis-en-scene, which is very specific to thriller/horror films.

Red Connotes: danger, blood, murder, love, romance

The idea of using red as a theme in our sequence (red roses, lipstick, candles etc.) was also inspired by Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic, 2001) where pink is a prominent colour throughout the film. It was also inspired by the classic horror Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973) where the colour itself adds a lot of impact in making the film more dramatic and gory.

The title ‘Love you to Death’ is also in red sophisticated font anchoring the two main themes of love and danger. It looks like it has been stained in blood connoting death.

The low-key lighting in our indoor shots creates a very sinister mood and contrasts with the bright outdoors contrasts with the indoors indicating the use of binary opposites, a concept identified in many films by theorist Levi Strauss. It suggests that the victim, Barney, is walking from light or safety, to the dangers of darkness. Here we have also used pathetic fallacy as the weather seems to get worse as Barney comes closer to his own death.

The knife at the end is probably the greatest genre signifier featured in many horror films such as Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978), and Psycho, suggesting violence, and as an opening sequence should, it establishes audience expectations for the rest of the film.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Although our film is targeted at those aged fifteen and above, the film itself represents young adult/ couples around the age of twenty. We purposely chose actors that are quite mature looking, and as audience feedback from friends out of school shows, they look much older than seventeen years.

Female Status

We chose the main character to be female in order to reflect the change in women’s social status in Britain today. The female today is given much more importance than ever in the past and likewise, our sequence represents a young woman who is assertive and overpowering with the upper hand in the relationship between herself and her boyfriend. This is reflected in the telephone conversation where she says ‘you’re two minutes late!’ in her strong tone of voice where she seems extremely stern and demanding.

Looks
We chose our actress very carefully so that her striking looks including the bold brown eyes and curly dark brown hair, complements her strong personality. This was extremely important as a blue-eyed blonde actress for example, would not have represented this personality with the same effect as she is stereotypically seen to be the vulnerable victim. However, even then our protagonist is primarily represented as a passive object of the male through the nude shower scene where she is quite exposed.

Personality
The woman is also presented to be quite a sophisticated and feminine character and this is evident from the mis-en-scene:

- Largely lit by candles
- Elegant dress with red roses
- Carefully applied make-up
- Red nails

Here she represents a typical victim who is home alone and about to be murdered. On her dressing table however, everything is arranged in height order, which represents this young female adult as overly organised as well. This hints a slight strangeness in her personality which is emphasised when she says ‘you’re two minutes late’. Here we are representing those in society who suffer from psychological problems, which cause them to be extremely paranoid and in the long-run, lead to acts of violence. This is an underlining theme of our film, very much inspired by Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) where character Norman Bates is represented to be an ordinary man but in fact turns out to be a complete psycho. Another character that inspired us to use a female was Alex Forrest played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987) who seems like an ordinary woman at first but actually suffers from a form of obsessive condition. Likewise, our protagonist suffers from a similar mental illness, which is revealed at the start, and therefore the rest of the film gives an insight to such a woman’s life.

On the other-hand, the male character represents:

To break conventions we have represented the boyfriend with the virtues of a female.
Here we have represented the binary opposite of good versus evil through both characters and their contrasting intentions: Love and Murder

Being a British film, our film also represents people of Greek background as our actress is of this ethnicity. This goes to reflect the British society as being more and more multicultural. It also shows that it is not only the white woman that has equal status to that of a man, but women in general, despite their ethnicities have increased importance. The rest of the film would perhaps address elements of Greek culture more directly through more traditional mis-en-scene and the character’s lifestyle. This links in with our company name ‘Perspective Films’ which makes films to represent the perspective of people from a range of ethnicities and minority groups.

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute you media product and why?
The kind of institution that would distribute our film depends on the type of film it is and who we intend to reach with it. The distributors should also be identifiable with our production company, ‘Perspective Productions’.

-We make films that are unique to showing situations from the perspective of people of different ethnicities and minority groups, and therefore our audience is restricted to a very specific group of people.

‘Love You to Death’ was also made to target a niche market consisting of young adults and specifically thriller/horror genre lovers; therefore, it is of a cult status. An example of an independent distributor that may distribute and market our film is Dogwoof Indie, a very experienced company that can guarantee film bookings at Independent cinemas, TV sales, DVD sales and online distribution.
The film would be distributed to a local or arts cinema, which screens independent rather than mainstream British, or Hollywood films for example:
>Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley
>The Tricycle Theatre in Brent

More specifically, to suit the horror/thriller genre of the film, it could be screened at places such as the Halloween Film Society in Hackney where thriller/horror film fans could easily be targeted.

-In order to target our primary audience of young adults the film could also be distributed at student film festivals as part of programmes such as Exposure in Manchester who screen more than 100 short films at the festival each year, therefore exposing the film to lots more students. Being a low budget film, the run would be limited to a night or two due to financial viability.

On the other-hand with a slightly higher budget and the use of real actors, this film does have the potential of becoming a mainstream British film just as the recent low budget Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008) managed. Warner Independent Pictures believed that this film would go straight to DVD but as we are aware this film has become a great blockbuster. Initially however it was only screened at Telluride Film festival going on to gain nationwide success throughout America.

-Our film could have this potential because Americans particularly enjoy watching British films as we can tell from the recent Golden Globe awards where Kate Winslet being a British actress won two awards. Therefore, the British-ness in our film, evident in the street shots and the way the actors speak, could gain it much popularity so the film could be released on a more national scale.

Other ways of exhibiting our film could be through the web using sites such as FlickRocket, which provides an online DVD download distribution platform. This would be a very good idea as the new young generation is very much dependent on the Internet and it would be a good way to attract them.

Evaluation Question 4

What would be the audience for your media product?

Primary audience
Young adults between the ages of fifteen to thirty- We chose fifteen years as the minimum age, as this is when young teenagers begin to mature and therefore, they would be able to understand our psychological thriller more easily. It is the pleasure of working out an intellectual puzzle that should attract them to our film. We especially look to target the female gender; however, the film overall is largely targeted at young couples because as well as consisting of thriller/horror conventions, it also features elements of romance.

Secondary audience
Lovers of the thriller/horror genre who often like to receive the emotional pleasure of being thrilled. Those who belong to the ‘cultural community’ of thriller/horror film fans would immediately be able to recognize the repertoire of elements shared by these films and therefore will identify them within our film as well.

Other
Audiences of different ethnicities, especially those Greek background may also be a potential target audience for our product based on the fact that our actress is Greek and elements of Greek culture may be evident throughout our film.

To see how successfully we managed to target our audience we recently held a screening at school inviting those aged fifteen to eighteen to see their reactions to our product and as expected both males and females enjoyed it very much. Overall, the boys gave it an average of 8/10 and girls gave an average of 9/10, which ties in with our idea of initially targeting females with our female protagonist, but also the males. I also held a screening at home with family, mainly cousins between the ages of twenty to thirty as well as my nineteen year old sister and parents in their forties. It too produced similar results, and although my parents enjoyed it, they mentioned that they think the film is not made for them, but a younger audience, which is true.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/ address your audience?
In order to attract both our primary and secondary audience, we spent a lot of time on the visual image, including the mis-en-scene and characters.

Attracting young adults (15-30 years)
-We specifically chose actors aged seventeen who looked quite mature for their age, so that a wide range of people within our target age range could relate to them.
- We used make-up such as thick black eyeliner and red lipstick to make our actress look older
- We used the smart dress code of a black jacket and grey trousers to make our actor look more mature
- The genre of thriller/horror itself should attract young people as our audience screening showed that horror is one of the most watched genres amongst them followed by comedy.

We attracted Males by:
- Using a female protagonist whom they would be sexually attracted to due to the shower shots
- Portraying the male’s vulnerability and playing on their fears of being dominated by the woman in a relationship, which they fear will make them feel like less of a man and therefore more insecure. This would make them suspicious as to what will happen to this male character and how he will react.

Our audience screening showed that males did enjoy our opening sequence as all of them said they would like to watch on.

We attracted Females by:
Using a female character who they can relate to as she is:
- Image conscious and therefore applies a lot of make-up and paints her nails
- Sophistiticated, which is clearly portrayed through the mis-en scene during the pan of dressing table on which there are candles and many red accessories.
-They may also be attracted to our film due to the fact that women are portrayed as more powerful than men subverting their stereotypical image as the victim in many horror/thriller films such as 'Scream' (Craven, 1996).

We attracted Young Couples by:
- Using references to red to connote love through the iconography such as the red rose
-Suggesting elements of sex and romance through the nude shower shots and candle lit dinner
-Overall, we used a very ordinary setting that is relatable to everyone in order to suspend their disbelief so that they perceive the film to be real.


Attracting our secondary audience (horror/thriller film lovers)
We did this through conforming to audience expectations with our use of genre conventions such as:
- Low-key lighting
- Eerie music
- References to red
- Characters (victim/villain)
- Most obviously the iconic knife

I think our opening sequence will invite in even more genre fan viewers as whilst audiences often like to be ‘in the know’, once introduced to the big twist in our film, it may arouse even more suspicion as to what this female killer is going to do next and why, and therefore they will watch on. In our audience feedback questionnaire, a female aged 17 has said 'I am interested to see what happens to the man', which is what we wanted to achieve.

In this way, we also attracted our audience by addressing their fears of the effects that psychological illnesses can have on people. It is especially terrifying to see how an ordinary woman that seems to be performing her daily ritual of getting ready, in fact transforms into a psycho who is preparing to murder her boyfriend. This may leave the audience feeling anxious and even suspicious about those ordinary people around them.

For effect, we used a build-up of suspense through the slow-paced editing style leading up to the shocking climax. We emphasised it by using slow motion when the knife is picked up giving the audience time to react. Being thrilled is all part of the viewing pleasure and audience feedback certainly shows that many were shocked when the female character picks up the knife. Therefore, this sort of climax can attract our audience by generating visceral pleasures.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The production of our film opening has been a great learning process as I have become much more confident with filming and editing technology. I have kept a record of the whole process on Blogger, which is another skill that I learnt making it easy to communicate with the group and present findings and reflections.

The test shoot was extremely important as I got the chance to refresh my camera skills and experiment with new hardware.

Hardware we used:
~Sony Mini DV (Digital Video) camera- which I can confidently set up and I am also aware of making sure that the batteries are fully charged before each shoot.

~The tripod- This helped us shoot steadily from different levels.

I have also developed my camera movement skills becoming smoother with my pans and tilts and more controlled with the zoom. One thing I learnt was that it is not a very good idea to use zoom as it causes pixilation and so the image deteriorates in quality, making it look less professional. This was a great problem for some of our lipstick shots, which we could have used, did we not zoom.

~External mike and headphones - These were extremely significant in our production as filming outside meant that it was essential to listen out for background noise such as cars, alarms, building work etc and work around it.

~Dolly –I learnt how to connect this to the camera as we considered using it for a track shot, however the passageway we wished to shoot in, was not wide enough and therefore made it impractical. This was unfortunate as the Dolly ensures a much smoother and quieter track than the chair we attempted to use.

~Pag light- this was useful in enhancing our shots, creating different effects depending on which filter was down. After our test-shoot we were able to see how much the lighting adds to the quality of our shots and made better use of it for the real shoot. We also created our own light with lamps and candles.

All this equipment was portable and therefore made our job much easier, especially when shooting outdoors.


Software
In Post-production I was able to develop my skills on the edit suite learning many new skills when using the editing software, Adobe Premiere Pro. After the Test Shoot, I learnt how to capture and record the shots from the video tape to the computer.

-I also learnt how to crop or using the razor tool, cut shots and place them along the timeline in a diagonal manner. These were the main things I needed to know about non-linear editing. However, in order to make the sequence more professional I learnt many new skills about adding effects and transitions such as the cross dissolve during the establishing shot, and the fading of titles using the ‘key-frames’.

- I also learnt how to adjust the brightness and contrast on each of the shots using video effects as well as the speed and duration in order to add slow motion on our final shot.

- Adding text, resizing and adjusting the colour was an essential skill as it was needed to add the credits, which ran throughout the entire sequence. I also learnt how to upload new fonts to the programme from the site dafont.com

- Using Audio effects, we were able to lower the treble to take out any camera sound.

We also added the non-diegetic sound track on the audio track along the timeline, where again key frames came in use when adjusting the volume during the conversation. For the conversation i was able to learn how to unlink the video from the sound and synchronize the diologue with the lip movements.

The software we used in fact had a lot more options that would help enhance our project and make it look more professional, however due to the limitations of our knowledge we could not use it to its full potential. All these processes however, were ones that I had not used before and therefore I have definitely developed my basic editing skills.

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary task, I feel my knowledge on planning and constructing a successful continuity sequence has really increased and I have especially come to know the importance of each stage in the process from pre to post production.

Planning
-Initially after reading the brief for the preliminary task, I was sure it would be quite simple, and I did not think much planning would be needed, although we did produce a rough storyboard, script and shooting script.

This planning made us organised and efficient.

-For our film production, we recognised that due to limitations of time, location, availability of actors and the weather, planning needed to be in much more detail.

-We also had to think about locations and actors very carefully and did some recces near and around our homes whilst for the preliminary task we were limited to locations within the school grounds.

Research
Our film brief like the prelim required us to construct a continuity sequence but one that specifically follows the form of a film opening sequence and the conventions of a certain genre.

-For this, we needed to research both genre and film-opening sequences, which was essential to enhance our sequence.

-Our prelim production was quite plain and boring with normal students in a classroom having a short conversation. Looking back at it and researching into real film openings, we learnt that in order to enhance our sequence, we needed to think about presenting our characters with appropriate costume and make-up, and choose a suitable location.

-We also learnt how important the mis-en-scene is in order to create the right mood and paid a lot of attention to it >>

-As well as the visuals, it would have been better if we had paid more attention to the dialogue, as audience feedback shows whilst the set, characters and music were the most liked features of our sequence; the dialogue was the least liked factor. If we were to produce our film, the script would need revising.

Production
- During the production itself however, we found the that ‘sound check, camera-check, camera rolling…action’ process we learnt during the preliminary task was extremely useful in making sure everyone and everything was ready before we took each shot. This process became natural making sure everyone was ready with whatever they were doing as we often swapped roles within the team to gain experience with different technologies.

- One aspect we definitely improved on was leaving time at the beginning and end of each shot before we said ‘cut’ so that it gave us space to cut the clip when editing, in order to create a successful match on action.

-The test shoot proved to be extremely helpful as we could see how our idea works in our chosen location and whether we were being too ambitious or not. For example, after the test shoot we were aware that a track through the hallway would be impractical as sliding a chair with wheels on carpet was very unsteady and the dolly was too wide for the hallway. All this meant that we did not waste the actors’ time when they arrived but knew exactly what we were going to do and how. Therefore the test shoot proved to be essential.

-During the prelim task, we sometimes found we had a lack of good shots to choose from, as we had not done enough takes. Therefore, for our film production we took many takes of each shot so we had good range of shots to choose from.

-For continuity reason we also had to make sure that every time we took a shot, we put everything back in its place so that there isn’t a jump of objects between shots without ellipses. For this, we decided to mark the positions of a few things with a chalk.

Editing
I have also learnt a lot about editing as this time, not only did we have to order our shots in a continuity sequence, but we also had to add titles, effects and a soundtrack.

-I have certainly improved my skills on using the editing software Premiere Pro, and especially learnt about ways to enhance shots through audio and video effects

- I learnt how useful the storyboard was when editing, as we knew exactly which shots to drag out the box, place on the timeline and trim, according to the shot number we had given it during the capturing process.

Sound
During our prelim, we also found that sound quality of the conversation was not so good. Therefore, for our final production we decided to:

1) Record the voice separately using a microphone
2) Synchronize it to actor’s lip movements on the editing software
3) Lower the treble on audio effects, to get rid of camera sound, a factor that stood out in our prelim production.
4) Record some atmospheric sound to replace the camera sound and make it more realistic.

Evaluation
Finally, when evaluating our preliminary task, we watched it as a class and our feedback was very much based on our media knowledge. Whilst this helped us improve our media skills, we were not able to see what a real audience would think of our product. However for the final product we got feedback from our target audience with a large number of non-media students therefore we could get a better idea of what our audience would really think about our sequence, and how we could improve it in the future. Therefore, the audience screening was very useful!

Overall, I have learnt a lot more about each stage in the process of filmmaking from planning to producing and finally evaluating. I have also learnt the importance of working as a team, sharing roles and learning new skills from each other as we spent a lot more time together unlike for the preliminary task.

Audience Feedback
We held a proper screening this week with people within our target audience and I think it went extremely successfully. We had a turn out of about 40 people and gained much constructive feedback:

Here is a summary of our findings:
>15year olds: Overall liked the set but disliked the dialogue

>16 year olds: Liked the music but disliked the dialogue

>17 year olds: Liked both the music and characters but disliked the dialogue

Here the common trend is that most people liked the music the most and liked the dialogue the least.
-Overall we received an average of 8/10 from the boys who all said that they would watch the film

-We received an average of 9/10 from the females with a few 7s however many of the girls were not very fond of the horror genre.

I also held an Audience screening at home with my cousins aged 20-30 years.
Both the males and females gave it an average of 8/10. This shows that it appeals to both males and females from the older end of our target audience too. Some quotes from my cousins were:

‘The girl looks evil’ Female (aged 22)
‘The final shot where she picks up the knife looks really good’ Male(aged 19)
‘The final shot is over-dramatic’ Female (aged 24)
‘The music is really good!’ Male (aged 19)

Overall, everyone suggested that the dialogue could have been better. We thought the dialogue would have helped the audience make sense of what was going on but it seems that the cross cutting made the relationship between the male and female obvious enough. If we were to re-make the opening sequence we could either get rid of the dialogue or improve it. This is something to keep in mind for the future. Other than that, I think the screenings were definitely a success and I am extremely happy as most people really enjoyed our sequence and we received much positive feedback.

Audience Feedback
Yesterday Alice, Mel and I had a very productive group meeting about audience feedback and our screening session. We drafted a questionnaire, and decided on our roles for the session. I am going to be standing at the door inviting everyone in and handing out questionnaires whilst Alice will do the briefing speech and Mel will be in charge of the technological side. Alice is also going to set up a facebook group on which we can invite the people we want who conform to our target audience (young adults-over the age of 15- and those who enjoy thrillers). We will also keep individual screenings at home to get feedback from family and friends from out of school.

We have decided to hold our screening next Wednesday, and we have booked Miss Blackborow’s room for this in advance, so everything is quite organised and moving smoothly. I plan to begin writing up my evaluation this weekend and adding in the audience feedback next week after the screening. I am really looking forward to the screening, as it will be interesting to see how non-media students react to our sequence!

Finishing our Project...
The film-making project has finally come to an end. Our deadline was yesterday and fortunately we managed to meet it with no problems =). We did however, make a few last minute changes to our sequence before getting it signed off.

We tightened a few frames slightly. We also re-recorded Laura’s dialogue which sounds much better now. The pause before ‘…for dinner’ did not have the same effect on the audience as we had intended so we got rid of that. Now she sounds much more sinister. We also cut the dialogues slightly so the conversation sounds more natural and flowing.

Yesterday we went through each of the titles making all the names bigger than their ‘job’ in the project for example ‘directed by…’ as this seemed quite conventional in other opening sequences.

Whilst getting feedback from Miss Blackborow, we all seemed to agree that the production name KADAM was a bit of a distraction with no significance, and that we should give more thought to the company name in order to establish ourselves more clearly. We came up with the two names:

OUTLOOK and PERSPECTIVE

We finally decided on ‘A PERSEPECTIVE FILM’ as everyone seemed to like it better. We chose this name because it signifies that as a company, we make films that give our audience the chance to see things from the perspective of different people within the British Society, whether they are from different ethnic backgrounds, or people from different aspects from society (for example homeless, disable psycho etc.)

‘Love you to Death’ is based on a psycho woman of Greek background, and therefore throughout the film there are references to Greek culture. This is what makes our company different from others.

After having placed our production company’s name on opening shot, we were ready to get signed off. Me, Alice and Mel were all very excited, and overall extremely pleased with our final sequence as we had done all we can to improve it and make it the best we can!

My Reflections on the Screening
We had our first Screening on Friday, which was very successful as we received both some good constructive criticism as well as feedback on works well. After this screening, the main feedback we received was that:

- The font colour looked too student-y due to the red glow
- The opening shots are a bit rushed
- The lipstick shot is too quick
- The volume of Barney’s dialogue needs to be increased slightly in one of the shots

We have already started making some changes for example we changed the font colour to a more professional looking grey colour. We also extended some of the shots to slow the pace down.

Things the audience liked included:
- Music
- Mis-en-scene
- Last shot
- The final title

I am really pleased with this feedback, especially as now we know exactly what to change before our Tuesday deadline. I am sure we can make most of the changes tomorrow. Mel also pointed out that Laura looked slightly yellow in some of the shots so we may have to sort out the colouration slightly as well.

First Week Back –Editing
Editing this week has been quite hectic as since getting feedback from both Miss Thrasher and Miss Blackborow, we noticed that there were quite a lot of little things we still needed to sort out including:

- Lighting on a few of the shots
- Credits- font and colour
- Final title
- Barney’s dialogue
- The glitch in music in some places

I found the teacher feedback was really useful as they managed to notice things that we couldn’t, for example, some shots were a few frames to long and needed tightening up for perfection, and that the opening fade was not long enough and didn’t give the audience enough time to take things in. It is always good to get feedback from an audience’s perspective and therefore we made sure we got a lot of feedback from lot of different people to make the sequence look as best we can.

As usual, due to clashes with the other classes, I did not have many free periods to spend on editing but as a group we were very productive during our lessons making quite a few changes to the sequence including:

- Adding a cross dissolve at the beginning between the establishing and shower shot
- Adding a cross dissolve between the stepping out the shower and pan of dressing table shot to take the audience in more slowly.
- Cut the music so that its original end is where our sequence ends
- We brightened, but then decided to get rid of two of the lipstick shots (picking up and applying shot)
- Instead, we went back to all our original shots finding an even better lipstick popping shot with great lighting and used the single shot instead. Miss Blackborow thought this was a good idea as she said it shows that applying the red lipstick was part of this character’s rituals.
- We also scrapped the final shot of Laura’s evil smile as the knife shot seemed much more dramatic and of better quality.
- We added slow motion to the final knife shot- this is personally one of my favourite shots now, I think it is extremely effective and looks much more professional.
- We re-arranged the order of the shots into an order that makes more sense, so the tying up dress shot is followed by a similar distance shot of Laura on the phone.
- With the help of Mr Deans, we also changed the lighting on some of Barney’s shots, as it was obvious that they were shot on different days.
- Alice also cut the sound on Laura’s dialogue so there was less of a pause before Laura says ‘…for dinner’
- Mel spent quite a lot of frees working on the sequence and managed to sort of the volume level of the music and dialogue so that the music does not drown out the dialogue, but also, so the dialogue sounds natural, therefore not too loud or not too quite, depending on the characters distance from the audience.
- The title now is also on a plain black backround as Miss Blackborow said it took the audience's attention off the knife, which is meant to be the climax of our opening sequence.

As I could not edit much in my frees, I spent my free period looking through the sound effects for good footstep sounds or sounds for a man screaming as we considered this for effect at the end. However, I was not able to find any sound effects that would go in our sequence. I also went through the fonts on dafont.com to look for a suitable font for our credits. I found quite a few and saved the best ones to show Mel and Alice in the lesson. We all finally agreed on using a font called Black Chancery as we all thought this was easy to read but at the same time sophisticated and matched our final title. I was very happy that we finally found a font as feedback showed that our credits were one of the major problems in our sequence.

Finally, after one long productive week we were ready for our first screening, Friday after school. This was quite exciting as we were able to see our sequence on the big screen but also meant we could spot more faults in it. Overall, however I was very pleased with this screening as we managed to receive a lot of useful feedback, which means we already know what changes we need to make come Monday morning!