Script

We only really needed to plan the script for the radio recording we play over the house scene. This is because the girl in the shed and the man in the house never actually exchange any dialogue. This wont make shooting the sequence any easier as we have to tell the story in other ways.

This is a picture of our original script. This is the only planning we have done for the script we have focused more on the shooting schedule and storyboard.

All it shows is some of the dialogue needed for the news on the radio. It does not include any screams and noises made by the girl in the shed. To be fair we are planning on letting the actress in the shed make up the noises and screams she makes as this will make it look more realistic as apposed to false.

We are also thinking about having the man repeat 1,2,3,4 whenever he does an action for example opening a cupboard, as this will enthesise that he has OCD, however we are not entirely sure of this as we don't want it to get too repetitive and bore the audience.

We are yet to shoot our final media product but i know we should have planned our script then we have so far. hopefully it won't have any repucutions on the quality of the product.

The Title

Once we decided on the genre of Horror for our film we started to plan the name of our Title. We had all done our own individual research of titles so we knew what type of technique we would use. We decided to go for an abstract name that did link in with our film in some ways. Once we knew the tactic we started thinking about what type of names we could use, this is what we came up with: 

Our OCD character is obssesed with the number 4 so we decided to play around with that, some of our ideas were:

• Fourth coming
• Four of a  kind
• 4
• Thorthcoming
• 1, 2, 3, 4
• number 4
• 4bidden
• 4bid
• forbidden

 We decided that using the number four in our title was too obvious and tacky, so we played around with the obssesive character of our villain, here s what we came up with:

• obsessed
• fixated
• fixation
• fixate
• captured
• fix4tion
• obssesive
• stalker

Finally we decided our title would be Fix4tion, this is because it links well with our OCD character as it focuses on the number four and it also includes the theme of the film which is a man being fixated with girls.

Our screening

These are pictures we took of our screening of our final media product, FIXATION. We used only one room and layed our table and chairs for people to sit in.

We held the screening on Friday 26th March, we had 61 turn up from year 11, 12 and 13. It was the first time many people saw our final project and we got positive reactions from everyone who came. To advertise our screening we posted a group on facebook and invited everybody to join, we also used word of mouth around our school. Finally we decided that the addition of popcorn and sweets would attract them in.

The purpose off this was to get feedback from our target audience. we printed off questionaires 55 in total and asked everybody to fill them in with their opinions, questionaires is a good way to gather results as it is confidential they didn't have to put their names so people weren't afraid of saying how they felt.

Questionnaire

Age

Gender : Male Female

What is the film’s title?

What genre do you think the film is?

Is the film a British, or American made film?

British American

What type of Cinema would you expect it to be shown in? (tick one box)

• Multiplex (Cineworld, Vue, Odeon etc…)
• Independent Cinema (Phoenix theatre)

Who do you think this film is targeted at?

Male
Female

What age group do you think the film is aimed at?

Are the characters easily identified? Who are the main characters? What role do they play?

Describe what happens in the sequence

What do you think the film is about? (themes)

Do you think the opening sequence works? Does it introduce the film successfully, the characters, the genre, the narrative?

What, in your opinion, works well in the sequence?

What could be improved?

Would you want to watch the rest of the film based on what you have seen so far?
Can you rate the opening sequence out of 10.

This is a copy of the questionaire we handed out, as you can see we asked questions about how they thought the sequence was and we also asked for feedback on how we could improve.This feedback is always helpful as nothing is ever perfect and there is always room for improvement.
 


This is an example of a questionaire completed by a student during the feedback session.

• By looking through all our questionaires we soon realised that our opening sequence had gone down really well with rating ranging from 7 to 10 out 10.
•  Everyone understood key themes and could identify them easily.
•  The genre and characters came across well and we had lots of good feedback on that.
• We had repetitive improvements which was to make the kitchen scene shorter and see more of the shed scene. However the reason we did this was so we could convey the OCD really clearly
• People indentified that it was predominately a male film
• They picked up that it would be for young adults mainly
• Finally, the feedback we recieved was very positive with minor improvement, the titles and graphics were really liked so as a group we were very happy with the outcome

The only problem with this screening is that the people who watched it our a couple of years younger then our target audience. This is because we are still students and we don't have access to 50 plus 22 year olds so we decided that the feedback from 16 to 18yr olds is still better then nothing.

Schedual: Re Shoot

Shooting Schedual: Re shoot

Shot Log: Re Shoot

Shot List: Re Shoot

Practice Shoot Shot Log

Practice Shoot Capture List

Capture List

Final Rough Cut of Our Opening Sequence

Due to this only being a rough edit, there is no need for titles to be added.
However, the lack of title shots means that there a cuts that look really jumpy as they are supposed to be split by a title shot.
Our Thoughts

• We think that overall we made good progress however by doing our rough cut we have seen vital errors and mistakes and missing shots which we need to improve on in order to make our final sequence better
• We think both actors and actress worked well however some shots can still be improved
• We need to sort out missing shots and make sure they are included next time
• We need to look at finer details-eg OCD actor should have shirt tucked in at all times, shoes on at all times, same pen in each shot
• We like the music choice we have made at the start of the sequence
• We need to change the POV shot from the toaster to the fridge as its not a good shot
• Props need to checked through-pen, toast same colour, butter needs to be soft, 4 keys

Teacher Feedback

•  Like the shed door scene but need to think quite carefully about make up- need to look at fake blood- doesn't look realistic
• OCD- they would know when the news would be on therfore play the news as soon as radio turned on then music plays after when he goes to turn off the radio
• Calender shot-already have the 24th circled? do crosses?
• He needs to switch of the radio

Group Meeting-Editing Shoot

• ,Lots of mistakes
• Continuity errors
• Some good shots
• Need more reaction shots
• Broken continuity techniques
• Background sound
• Burnt toast then the next shot doesn't have burnt toast
• lots of takes-need to cut that down in order to save time

Time:1 hour

Things to remember

On the day we noted down some points to remember for the next shoot as this was a practise shoot so we were able to learn from it:

• Make Up Wipes
• Black out sheets
• Polaroids
• Cork Board
• Soft Butter
• Butter and Toast needs to be in fours
• No butter on knife before
• Loaf of bread
• Full fridge
• Tuck in shirt
• Pull up trousers

• Overall we soon realised on the shooting day that we needed more time to prepare costume and setting. The shed we were using was full therefore this took us time to clear out and empty. The costume choices were made that morning therfore it took us more time then expected.
• We have now planned that on the next shooting weekend we will all come the night before and prepare all costumes and settings. Therefore clean the kitchen compltely and get the shed prepared. This will allow us to start shooting as soon as we arrive and we will save time therfore we can spend that on making all shots accurate.

Storyboard

Here are some photos of our storyboard:

We began storyboarding a week before our shoot. We initially did a timeline which we used to then add further detail and it made us think about where we would place titles etc. We used different colours for different types of shot eg-yellow was close ups. This allowed us to see if we were using variation of shots as this criteriria would make our opening sequence exciting and interesting.

We split up the jobs of the storyboarding to make it quicker

-India and James did the drawings

-I did the writing underneath identifying each shot

-Spencer sorted out the order generally helped with all jobs

The process of storyboarding was very long however without doing this I don't think we would have a set idea of the opening sequence. It made us actually walk through our sequence and try and overcome problems

Title Sequence - Credits Placement

When thinking about the placement of credits you have three main options:

• The first is to have basic, bold credits in the middle of the screen, this is the formal option to pretty much get the credits over and done with.
• The second is you could have the credits co-opirated into the actually film, e.g in a poster or replection on a window, this is a more modern way.
• The third is to have them on screen when introducing the actors/actresses, so we know which actors plays which role.

A good example of the first technique to place the credits is 'silence of the lambs'.





As you can see from this video the words are big and bold and right in the middle of the screen, this tells us that what is going ojn in the background isn't that important as they wouldn't be covering up anything that has any significance to the story.


A good example of the second technique is 'Panic Room'.






As you can see from the video the credits are in-corperated into the scene, this is more interesting than the third option and it tells us that the film is likely to either be clever or modern.


A good example of the third technique is 'Diagnosis Murder'





In this example the names of the actors only appear when you can see their faces, when it moves on to other actors then the names change. This is commonly done in dramas.


Conclusion


From the research we have done on the placement of credits we have decided to go with the first technique as it suites a horror film more than the others, technique no. 2 suits action or comedy films and technique no.3 suits TV dramas more than films. However we will not have the words in the middle of the scene as the audience needs to be focusing on what is going on in the opening sequence.

Location Stills For Our Final Idea

Here are some stills from our new location (my house)

As you can see the kitchen is much tidier than the previous location, it is more minimalistic and more realistic for an OCD person to live in.

The shed is small and cosy, it will really make the audience feel closed in on, and costraphobic. It will not look like a nice place to be in at all.

The garden is quite long and there is an easy route from the shed to the house.

 

 

As you an see there is able to be a good shot of the door from the hallway as the man enters the house. you can even have a shot of the door from the stairs.

 

Teacher Feedback To Proposals

Teacher Feedback to First Proposal

Here is a lists of points our teacher made about or First idea, and how we could improve our idea:

• 
  
  We were trying to tell two stories, we have a character with OCD, and the same character him kidnapps girls, it's too complicated with both stoies
  
  
• 
  
  Our teacher loved the fact we had an OCD character as it is original
  
  
• 
  
  She liked the kitchen scene, with the toaster popping, showing an average day
  
  
• 
  
  She thought if we had an OCD kidnapper then his kidnappings would all have to be OCD, with everything perfect
  
  
• 
  
  She didn't like our location as it was too homely and not the sort of house a person with OCD would live in
  
  
• 
  
  She thought that our 2 minute opening sequence was trying to tell the whole story to the film
  
  
• 
  
  Our teacher said that there was no sense to who's the opposite, what she meant was that there was no one challenging the kidnapper like a detective or a victim that wants to fight back.
  
  

After we got this feedback we had a group meeting and discussed how we would change our final idea. here is a list of things we have changed:

• 
  
  We have changed the location to my house, it is tidier and looks more like a house someone with OCD would live in
  
  
• 
  
  We have kept the kitchen scene
  
  
• 
  
  We have the kept the OCD kidnapper
  
  
• 
  
  Instead off starting with a shot of the kitchen we start with a shot of the kidnapped girl

• 
  
  alot less goes on in our scene now to stop us telling the whole story

Teacher Feedback to Second Proposal

After getting our feedback we all spoke about it and worked on a new narrative a new loaction and finalised the character. We then proposed again and we were passed allowing us to move on to planning for our shooting weekend. Here's some feeback our teacher gave us after the second proposal

• Loved new locations

• Questioning eyesight from the shed to the house-will it work

• Perhaps use the exterior of one shed and the interior of the other so we get a good shot from thw window to the house

• Complete transformation-really likes it

We can now start storyboarding and preparing shooting schedules

Proposal - First Idea

Here is the hand-out we gave out to the cless that went along with our presentation. It offers additional information we may not of covered in the presentation and it gives us the key point to genre, target audience, synopsis and character.

Ciara:Today we presented our proposal for our final idea. I think it went well perhaps we should have focused on how we were going to structure the proposal more. I talked about the synopsis of the opening sequence and about the target audience

James: I think our presentation went well, we covered all the main topics, including genre, characteristics (OCD), actors/location and the target audience. In my opinion we could of delivered the presentation better, what we were talking about was good but our presentation wasn't structured enough.

Spencer: Today we presented our initial proposal. I think the presentation went well, however we could have included more information on the character and location. Also i feel that we did not elaborate on the plot enough and explain the style of shooting we would use.

India: I thought the way we delivered the presentation was good as wel covered every aspect we needed to, also i think that our handout (see above) was good and it explained everything clealy.

Research on Genre

The genre we are portraying is horror/slasher, wikipedia's definition of a horror film is 'movies that strive to elicit emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers'. Horror is extremely popular with people aged 15-30 of both sex's, this is because this age group likes to have a good time and live life on the edge, there is a sense that they like to prove themselves and show they are not weak, so horror/slasher films are a good way to prove this.

Films of the horror genre use alot of different themes to make the film more scary, these include

• mentally ill male capturers
• female victims
• sex slaves
• imprisonment in dark places
  
• blood and goar
• kidnapping
  

Our film sequence will include all 6 of these themes. we will have an OCD capturer, we will have a young pretty female victim who will be held against her will as a sex slave, and we will tie her up and put fake blood on her to show that some sort of violence has been shown towards her.

There will be a dungeon/captivity scene in our opening sequence where one or more girls who will be tied up as a sex slave.The theme of dungeons is portrayed in many horror films, it is a favourite with producers as it catches on to the female victim and male capturer.

We have taken some ideas from the popular horror 'Silence of the lambs', in this horror a freaky, mentally disturbed man kidnapps a young female and imprisons hers. Which has simularities to our film idea.In silence of the Lambs the male capturer is mentally disturbed, in our film idea we have selected a mentally ill man to be the kidnapper. This capturer has a strong relationship with the pet dog, we have also decided to show a relationship like this also choosing a dog.

Another horror film that focuses on the female victim is 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' This film is about a family who kidnapps a young lady, women are usually used as they are thought to be more 'helpless' and need protecting. In this clip you can see the woman is gagged and tied up, this will be simular to the Mes En scene for our film.

In this clip there are odd things that the males capturers do, they choose to eat at the table with the woman, this is an odd thing to do as she has been kidnapped by them, so why would she want to sit down at the table with them? This technique is comonly used in horrors, the odd rituals that happen make the film alot more spooky, with have taken ideas from the scirpt of this film. we have decided that the man will talk to the tied up girl like they are husband and wife, saying things like 'honey im home' and 'have you had a nice day today?', these lines and the whole attitude that he feels he treats the girl well will make the opening sequence alot scarrier.