CLOSED

It is with great sadness and regret that I have to tell you all that this blog is closed. We hope you enjoyed your stay after making your Reservation. It is now, however, that you must pack up your things, checkout your keycard and leave the building preferably minus a few limbs and dripping in blood.

Storyboard - The POST-IT version!

This is our initial method of storyboarding, we used post-it notes to draw the pictures on and then move around. This made it much more flexible when we were making the storyboard. We drew all the pictures for the post-its then arranged them how we wanted. This meant we could see what shots we had and what shot types we were missing and whether we needed any cutaways in between certain shots.

Made it MUCH easier to draw out the final version of the storyboard!

Audience Screening Feedback

We took a random sample of 11 out of the 30 or so questionnaires (taking every 3).

Every sample was from 17-18 age group as they are in our year at school. About half were male and half were female, and traits did not seem to be based on gender as we expected. Common genre likes were action, thriller, comedy, horror and thriller. Someone even said slasher! These genres were shown in favourite films such as Saw, Scarface and Mean Girls.

Every single person recognised that it was an opening sequence and the title was 'Reservation', which was good from our point of view - our film was clear. Everyone also recognised from the sequence the genre, which was clearly horror with elements of thriller/slasher. About 9 out of the 11 people thought the film could be filmed at a normal cinema or multiplex with the other 2 opting for a student film festival. This tells us that our film could target a mainstream audience and be popular enough to show at a normal cinema. Most people opted for teenagers or 18-30's as the targeted audience with some adding horror enthusiasts or people that like to play violent games on the xbox/PS2. This was a pretty similar view we had for our target audience. Only 2 people mentioned that males would be interested so most people did not feel it dominated one particular gender.

The film seemed to make it obvious who the killer and victim was, and one pressed every single person was able to explain the victim was a captive and was being tortured by the killer. People described the killer as evil, insane, scarily polite, bad, mean, sadistic, murderer and psycho. Nobody described the victim so his personality can be identified as miscillaneous or "normal". Most themes identified were along the lines of fear, revenge, violence, evil and death, so that came across well.

All 11 people in the sample enjoyed the film and found it attractive to watch, with one person saying because they thought it had a clear narrative, and others saying it was tense and filmic. The favoured parts of the film were the hand at the end with the scream and Matt shouting, "I SAID BE QUIET!", which did not really suprise us - they were the most dramatic parts. People generally thought the lighting, music and location worked the best with some people suprisingly liking the flickering lights even though we were not sure about it. However, some people were not sure about the regular blackouts stemming from the flickering lights, and someone thought the acting was not up to scratch although we certainly do not agree with this. Alot of questions were asked about the random foot and then hand at the end - this made us pleased. These signified enigma codes and you were meant to be confused by them, as to continue watching the film to find out what they meant and who they belonged to (everyone commented on how they would continue to watch the film, even the people who said they did not like horror and would be terrified!) - so our film was successful in luring in its audience.

The following were the ratings given out of 10 by the 11 subjects: 10, 10, 9, 7, 8 and a half, 9, 8, 9, 10, 5, 9. On average this works out at about 8 and a half out of 10, which is not bad at all for an amateur film project. We realise some scores and comments maybe bias due to friends being present at the screening, but all in all we are very pleased with this feedback, and will take the criticisms on board in our evaluations.

Audience Screening

Today we held our audience screening in front of around 40 people. All in all I think about 35 questionnaires were filled in and the reaction was very positive. Our sequence got a big round of applause and the shocking ending made nearly everyone in the room jump - exactly what we intended!

So we are very pleased with this feedback and are soon to consolidate it all into a table from which we can base some of our evaluation findings on as evidence.

Shaun

The Final Sequence! :D

The weeks and weeks worth of work have finally paid off...

Enjoy!

Audience Screening

Audience Screening is booked for Monday lunchtime 12:45-1:05 and is being promoted via facebook!

Questionnaire

Our questionnaire will be designed to gain feedback to help answer evaulative questions on our piece, but will be asked in a simple non-technical-worded manner so everyone understands what they are doing. It will be average sized and to the point as all questionnaires try to be. Here are the questions we will probably ask (or along the lines of)...

About them:
Age.
Gender.
What are your favourite types of film?
What was the last film you saw at the cinema/on DVD?
What type of cinema do you visit?

About the film:
Does the film make sense?
Explain what happens in the film.
Is there anything that confused you?
Was it enjoyable?
Did it look like a film/was it attractive to watch?
What was most effective/least effective?
What have you just watched? (e.g. trailer/opening sequence etc.)
What was the title?
What are the main themes? (e.g. love/revenge etc.)
What type of cinema would you expect to see the film in?
What audience is it most likely to appeal to? (age/gender/interests etc.)
Do you think it was American or British made?
Explain about the characters and what role you think they will play in the film.
Would you watch the rest of this film?
Give the film a rating out of 10 (10 being highest).

We will try to cut these questions down to 10-15 precise questions to fit onto 2 sides of A4 (to save paper obviously by making them double-sided questionnaires!)

Audience Screening

Some time next week we are to have an audience screening in the media block, to gain feedback from our target audience. We are planning to this at school in the media block on Monday at 12.45pm. It should last about 20 minutes to half an hour. Lots of organisation is required before Monday and on the day:

- We must know our target audience (18-30's core, 12-60's secondary, all genders, horror enthusiasts mainly).

- We must decide who to invite. We think a wider audience will be accepted for our big audience screening to gain feedback from every party. At school it will only be possible to test the 12-18 bracket. Fellow sixth formers will provide core audience feedback, whilst year 7-11's will provide wider audience feedback. Other age groups over 18 will be shown the film out of school and we will collaborate all the feedback we individually gain out of school.

- For the big screening on Monday we are going to prepare a questionnaire, which I will write about in a new post. This is to gain quick and simple feedback from a large group of people. For smaller screenings, say at home with family, we can just talk to them about the film in a more detailed and personal manner. This we decided would be the best way of gaining large amounts of feedback. Group feedback from the big audience screening will be posted on this blog, whilst individual smaller screen feedback we individually gain will go on our individual blogs.

- Between now and Monday we will have to advertise for the screening, by a poster or by word of mouth amongst our friends. We will be busy doing this mainly in the sixth form common room and some around the rest of the school (younger year groups).

- On the day of the screening we will split up roles between the 3 of us. Beforehand, one will be in charge of technical things, making sure we have a DVD copy and testing it out on the big screen for perfect playback and volume. One will be in charge of photocopying the questionnaires and preparing the pencils and pens for people to write with. The other person will be responcible for setting up the room with lots of chairs and closing curtains and windows, whilst controlling lighting for a cinematic experience. During the screening, the technical person will be in charge of obviously playing the DVD etc. The person with the questionnaires will be at the door directing people into the right media room and giving out the questionnaires (also collecting them and the pencils after). The person setting up the room will probably have to deliver a short speech before the film explaining what we want from the people invited and a bit about our project.

So, before now and Monday we have plenty of things to get on with to keep us occupied before we begin our evaluations.

Kris, on behalf of the group.

Finishing Up

Today was our production deadline and we marked this occasion by adding a black title screen before our sequence with white writing proclaiming our group number, names and candidate numbers - basic procedure really!

We have now saved and met the deadline with plenty of time to spare - all done.

Lovely stuff.

Finished!

After fixing up our sequence using the feedback from the test screen, we were due to test screen again but were forced back because of the many changes we needed in our editing. This left us to test screen after school at about 4pm. Since lunchtime there had been further changes to the sequence applied by Jack and Shaun - this being the main title being finished by Jack, and some further changes by Shaun who had replaced the 'help' shout with a horrifying scream of pain. This, somehow over the top, seemed to work really well because of its shocking nature. It was perfectly timed with the hand banging against the door glass and we though it would make people jump, which is the point of a horror film. Also we had responded to more feedback from Miss Blackborow, adding more titles for the duration of the sequence as otherwise our piece would not technically be a "title sequence". We filled this with random names and media-related roles.

We did not get to test screen until about 4.45 because of other test screens, so we showed fellow media students around the department the sequence and asked for more feedback. This was alot more successful because of the miraculous changes, but there were still one or two things to fix up! We were told to change one of the names of our extra titles as it was distracting from the scene. This name was 'Han Chan' who is actually a boy we know, but we saw how funny this name could be percieved as if we had made it up. We were also told to move around some of the titles away from the main subjects on the screen such as to the sides and the bottom corners. The only other thing we were left to think about was the volume of Matt's voice over the music on two very short occasions. Other than that the changes we had made were fine, and the shocking ending was successful in causing the students a fright!

We went away for 15 minutes and quickly applied these changes, lowering the volume of the music on two parts of the dialogue in order to hear Matt, moving the titles around to fit perfectly on the screen without being distracting and adding a new name to one of the titles - an ambiguous and boring name, Tom Matthews, instead of Han Chan. We checked the whole sequence with Miss Blackborow one last time, saved, rendered and we were done, concluding our editing time at approximately 17:05.

Now our sequence will be put on Youtube and DVD, whilst we must get on with our evaluations... but our days in the edit suite are officially over leaving us with nothing but a gloriously completed sequence, fond memories and a tint of finalitic sadness.

Test Screen Reaction

After test screening we recieved alot of critical feedback - the minor mistakes that we needed to fix in order for our sequence to run perfectly. There was some obvious hiccups with the sound on the big speakers such as background fuzz in some shots and not others, and Rob's voice still being too loud but Matt's being too tired. There were also a couple of dodgy cuts during the conversation to fix. People liked the beginning titles but were dissapointed by the main title at the end as they thought it was too small, did not stand out, was not distinctive from other films and was boring as it used the same font as the rest of the titles. The last thing people suggested was a lock sound on the door rather than the shout of 'help' as this could also anchor the meaning of locking the victims away and the hand appearing being of a trapped man. This obviously left us with some work to do...

We worked hard on the sound, getting the voices the same level throughout. We also had to play around with the music for it too rise and fall with the sequence. We were told about a technique to take off the camera fuzz by lowering the treble booster, so we applied this to every clip and we were amazed at how effective this was. It cleared up alot of mess and helped make the dialogue clearer. It was miraculous! We also fixed up the cuts in the conversation as we were told and played around with the main title. We were not happy with the effects used on the editing software so we consulted our media technition and he suggested a programme called After Effects. We played around with this as well as checking out some effects on the technition's Imac before deciding to edit the effect of each individual letter in RESERVATION on After Effect. Jack did this in a free period, adding a mysterious glow and thickness to the font, whilst making random letters fade up until it spelt the word, RESERVATION. We loved the spooky, mysterious feel it gave to add a chilling end to the piece, accompanied by the music going silent leaving a thrilling echo. Finally, we found a sound of a locking door and applied this to the scene where the door is closed. We kept the 'help!' in for further feedback, but overall we feel we are one step closer to completion.

Test Screen

We are planning to have a test screening today in lesson to get feedback from fellow media students on the sequence and the title, as well as looking for mistakes we might spot ourselves as it may look different on the big screen.

BLK Feedback

Miss Blackborow took a look at our (finished) project and gave us the go ahead for our test screening. However she did have a few issues which we will look at when we have a screening. There was issues with fuzziness on the audio of some of Matt's shots and it is noticeable when they cut to shots of Rob. She wasn't 100% on the title as well and thought the shot with Matt shouting should be closer shot but it is impossible to change now.

Death of the Shoot

We have come to the conclusion not to shoot tonight, Tuesday the 6th January. It is our last chance to re-shoot in our basement location but once again we have experienced problems in communication with our actors, and one of them is unfortunately unavailable. However, since our decision last term to re-shoot on this date we have made some successful changes to our current sequence of footage and we believe this has come together nicely and would be fine for our final piece. We are beginning to sort out the problems with lighting and sound that we originally intended to change by re-shooting, so for this reason the failure to re-shoot tonight is not such a disaster.

We are now making decent progress with the footage we have. We have learnt many lessons about communication and actor problems along the way, some which could have been dealt with such as phone numbers, and some which could not have been dealt with such as illness and unattendance. Now, we are officially not shooting again for this project.

BLK Feedback

Miss Blackborow watched our sequence thoroughly and analysed it. Overall her comments were very positive about the titles, visualisation, pace and structure. She pointed out a few more little niggles for us to deal with to make the sequence perfect. This included making the fades between titles longer at the beginning to hold suspence, and bringing in the story slower. She also advised us to make the actor titles the same length, and take out one clip towards the end which is too dark. It was of Matt walking down a corridor towards the basement exit to link him walking away from Rob to him opening the door. However, taking out this clip made the sequence faster with this clip being irrelevant as the two fitted together fine for continuity. Other than this we still have to work on the sound with the help of Ryan, the media technition, and continue to work away at the tiny little bits of perfection such as cutting down shots slightly. This feedback was very useful and now we feel we have a finished sequence that we simply need to smarten up a bit, and Miss Blackborow agreed on this.

Hello again!

We're back.

Christmas was great.

Shaun is still ill.

The rest of us are fine.

Shaun is still showing lots of group commitment so everything is good and we are ready to go again!