Evaluation Question 1 by Ollie and Sam

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

In a horror or psychological thriller film the conventions of opening sequences are credits with scary fonts and dark colours. In horror and psychological thrillers, the opening scene often dives straight into the action with a crime scene or a mysterious scene, such as the classic thriller 'Jaws'. This often creates enigma codes for the audience as psychological thrillers and a horror will often draw in the audience’s engagement and gives them questions they want answering. In comedy films, the opening sequence often begins by giving the audience a brief insight of what the characters are like, often emphasising their personalities. For example in 'The Inbetweeners 2' the characters are expressed to the audience as freaks with no friends when the turn up t a normal party wearing fancy dress. In the opening sequence you also hear all the characters personalities, which gives audiences first impressions on the characters.

What was conventional to a psychological thriller in our film?

The location we used was a dark attic. This is conventional to a psychological thriller because it is often where the psycho keeps their prisoner in hostage.

We used blood and wounds. This is conventional to a psychological thriller because directors often like using images to make the audience feel sympathetically towards the character, for example case 39 when the parents are burning her in the oven.

The choice of music we used was very gloomy and dark. We used this when the antagonist was following the 'princess and prize' home to emphasise the fact that something bad about to happen and to make it clear to the audience she is being followed. This is conventional because directors and composers often like to use scarcely and psychotic music in psychological thrillers to highlight the psycho or villains thoughts and feelings.

The camera shots we used were conventional to our genre of a psychological thriller. We used shots such as extreme close ups to highlight the victims wounds and bruises, and to create moral panic for the audience using a scary atmosphere. This is also used in classics such as the first 'Saw' film when the main character is stuck in the bathroom. 

The identity of the protagonist was not shown in the opening sequence. This is conventional because in psychological thriller films, the psycho tends not to be identified in the opening sequence to engage the audience and ensure they keep watching to find out the identity.

We started off with the title at the end of the opening sequence.

What was unconventional to a psychological thriller in our film?

We didn't show any violence towards the 'prize' kept in hostage. This is unconventional because in psychological thriller films, we normally see something happen to her in the opening scene. For example in 'Jaws' we see the girl get attacked and killed by the shark.

Showing jump cuts of the girl getting ready in the opening sequence is unconventional because it didn't really relate to the previous scene.

In a lot of psychological thriller films, they follow Todorovs narrative theory, starting with the Equilibrium before moving onto the disruption. However we challenge this theory by starting with the disruption and then moving to a flashback and going to the Equilibrium.

We used unconventional camera shots such as zoom. This is unconventional because jump cuts are normally used instead of them. However as we were using a phone we wanted to represent who was messaging whilst making it clear what the message was. 

The title was named at the end of the opening sequence rather than the start. This is unconventional because in psychological thrillers they present the title at the start. Instead, there is normally a black out before moving on to the next scene.

Evaluation Question 3 By Esme and Sophie

How Did We Attract/Address Our Audience? Evaluation Question 5 By Esme

In order to know if our planned audience liked our idea and if we chose the right target audience we conducted a questionnaire based on our initial idea.

• It really helped us get an idea of what the audience would think about our idea and if we had produced an idea that would attract the audience we intended on attracting. We asked them questions to do with themselves and what they thought of our initial idea for 'Concealed'. 

• When looking at the results we noticed that all the people we asked like our idea for the film opening. They liked the idea of Damien being obsessed with Anastasia and that he wants her all to himself, so goes to drastic measure in order to have her.

• They liked the fact that antagonist's identity is kept hidden for a little while, they felt it would be more engaging and it would encourage them to figure it out for themselves. Also they would feel like they want to keep watching to find the answers to all their questions.

• They really praised the flash forward idea. They felt it would instantly grad their attention if the film went straight into action.

• The younger audience that we asked said that they like the fact that the film is based entirely on teenagers. They thought it would make it more exciting and that they would be able to connect with the characters a whole lot more.

Our opening sequence slightly goes against Todorov's narrative theory because it starts with the flash forward into the 'Disruption' stage of the plot, our plot is non-linear. It will engage the audience immediately because it is not what they are used to. They are used to starting a film with an introduction to the characters and their lives etc. However 'Concealed' s unconventional beginning will intrigue our target audience because it is unusually and not often seen in films. It also instantly throws them into the deep end. They are introduced to drama straight away, but have no clue as to what is going on, so their mind will be engaged as they try to figure out what is going on and make sense of the plot.

The hidden identity of the antagonist will also highly engage the audience. It is very clear from the costume and the angles that the antagonist is shown in that he is a bad character rather than a good character. However they do not see his face or have any hints as to who he is. It will encourage them to keep watching because they would've seen Anastasia and what is happening to her, however they will not know who is doing it or why they're doing it. So they will keep watching so that they can get the answers to their questions, it will also give them a sense of pleasure because as the film progresses they would get more action codes to give them an idea of the antagonist's identity, so they will start making their own predictions. If they predict the right identity then they we'll start to feel clever and will provide them with that sense of achievement, which according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs will give them a boost in 'Self-Esteem'.

The main character: Anastasia was purposely constructed to fit in with our target audience, we really wanted to create a likable and relatible character that the audience can connect with and build a relationship with. We used close-ups and extreme close-ups to really emphasise how she is feeling to position the audience to connect with her emotions and feel a large amount of sympathy for her. As the audience are  given the chance to connect with Anastasia within the first minute of the film they will instantly start to build a relationship with her character, causing them to want to watch more because they can see in the beginning that she is in trouble and they will want to know that she ends up happy in order to gain a sense of catharsis.

When looking at Blumler and Katz uses and gratifications theory, 'Concealed' will provide entertainment to the audience. The audience will be entertained by all the events that take place in the film and also by the tense wait of finding out if Anastasia will escape. During the equilibrium the audience may be provided with 'escape' because of the romance between Anastasia and Dylan. They may not have any romance in their life so the relationship between the two characters will provide this sense escape for the audience because they will feel romantic.

When showed our end product our audience said that:

• They really liked the used of extreme close-ups and close-ups of Anastasia 
• Generally their favourite shot was the point of view shot of Damien walking towards them - they felt it provided them with a sense of realism and they felt like they were in Anastasia's shoes.
• The end shot on the street was highly praised - they felt it really created tension because even more of the antagonist was revealed to them but they still had no idea what their identity was.
• The voice mails impressed them, they thought it sounded really realistic and the fact that at first it was a blank screen whilst they were playing really built up tension.

Evaluation Question 6: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product? By Esme

Who is our Audience for Our Opening Sequence? Evaluation Question 4 By Esme

Who Is Our Target Audience?

The main target audience for 'Concealed' will be aged 17-28. This is because the all the main characters are of young ages, the audience may therefore empathise with the characters because they are young like them and may have similar interests or personalities to the characters.

The fact that the main character is a female will create more of an attraction to young girls. Not only that, but stereotypically girls are more emotional and the film, being a psychological thriller conflicts the mind. Also there are some elements of romance again appealing to a girl target audience. Males will be the secondary audience because they will be attracted to the small element of action, as the dominant ideology of males is that they are more physical than women and also more aggressive.

The social demographic of our primary audience will be students who fall into the 'E' group. This group will be the main target audience down to the fact that the main characters are students and they are at a similar age to the audience.

The audience will be extremely sociable, popular and like going out with their friends, just like Anastasia and Dylan because again the audience will like the main characters instantly as they can see that the characters are like them and relate to them. Not only that but it also instant creates dislike for the antagonist. The antagonist has the complete opposite personality and is very socially awkward and distant from others. Therefore the audience will find him very weird from the beginning, this action code will also suspect that he is the antagonist.

According to Young and Rubicam's audience type theory, the primary audience will be 'The Mainstreamers' as they will be teenagers that like being part of a group and like to fit in. It could also attract the group The 'Aspirers'. This is because our audience like the main characters want high status and have high status. They consider themselves to be liked or known by a lot of people and care about what people think. Although the characters are not like this, their group of friends are and the stereotypical popular group in school are very materialistic and care about what everyone think.

When looking at Blumler and Katz uses and gratifications theory, 'Concealed' will provide entertainment to the audience. The audience will be entertained by all the events that take place in the film and also by the tense wait of finding out if Anastasia will escape. During the equilibrium the audience may be provided with 'escape' because of the romance between Anastasia and Dylan. They may not have any romance in their life so the relationship between the two characters will provide this sense escape for the audience because they will feel romantic.

They may enjoy films in the thriller and horror genre, films such as:

'Saw'
The fact the characters are kidnapped is similar to the plot of 'Concealed', also they are then tortured. Anastasia isn't exactly tortured, however she does constantly have violence inflicted on her. Both our film and 'Saw' feature violence and action. Perhaps this film applies more for the secondary audience of males.

'Hard Candy' The main character is also a young girl, she is younger than Anastasia. In this film she gains dominance and tortures an older man after accusing him of being a pedophile. The primary audience of females could enjoy this because of the fact that the female character is taking the lead, therefore rejecting the common convention in media products of men being at the top of the social hierarchy and women being at the bottom.

'Se7en'
 Similar in the sense that the antagonist's identity remains unknown for a lot of the film, engaging their minds more and encouraging them to become an active audience and try and figure out who the antagonist is.

Audience Research

In order to know if our planned audience liked our idea and if we chose the right target audience we conducted a questionnaire based on our initial idea.

• It really helped us get an idea of what the audience would think about our idea and if we had produced an idea that would attract the audience we intended on attracting. We asked them questions to do with themselves and what they thought of our initial idea for 'Concealed'. 

• When looking at the results we noticed that all the people we asked like our idea for the film opening. They liked the idea of Damien being obsessed with Anastasia and that he wants her all to himself, so goes to drastic measure in order to have her.

• They liked the fact that antagonist's identity is kept hidden for a little while, they felt it would be more engaging and it would encourage them to figure it out for themselves. Also they would feel like they want to keep watching to find the answers to all their questions.

• They really praised the flash forward idea. They felt it would instantly grad their attention if the film went straight into action.

• The younger audience that we asked said that they like the fact that the film is based entirely on teenagers. They thought it would make it more exciting and that they would be able to connect with the characters a whole lot more.

We also did some research on the conventional target audience for thrillers. We found out that:

• The age is usually older, so 18+. Purely because there is a lot of violence involved and the characters can possess some serious psychological problems, which younger viewers may find scary or disturbing.

• There is usually not a specific gender that is targeted because of the varying characters, both genders have someone they can relate to. 

• Generally this genre has quite a widespread audience because there are many Thriller sub-genres. Although Psychological Thriller is one of them, audiences who enjoy one sub-genre of Thriller will usually like another.

Script for Directors Commentary Evaluation Question 2 By Whole Group

How Does 'Concealed' Represent Particular Social Groups?

Ollie: Hi! Today me, Sophie, Sam and Esme have gathered to discuss representation of social groups in our new film opening: 'Concealed'. Sophie we'll start with you.

Sophie: The only social group really shown in our sequence is teenagers. All of our main characters fall into this group. The fact that we don't have any adult main characters, supports the ideology that teenagers isolate themselves from adults and the two lead quite separate lives. 

Esme: Also indicating that teenagers like to keep things to themselves and keep their lives quite private from their parents or any adults for that matter.

Sam: Teenagers are represented as quite threatening too. Damien is a prime example of how society views teenagers. Like they're dangerous and violent. 

Sophie: In terms of gender, predominantly people view society as very patriarchal.

Ollie: We really wanted to take advantage of this dominant ideology. So we make sure we really communicated this hierarchy. The plot alone supports it. 

Sam: Laura Mulvey believed that women are often objectified in the media, Anastasia's role supports this idea. Due to the fact that she would be classed as 'The Princess'. 

Esme: Propp's character theory identifies the different roles that are often given to characters. The fact that Anastasia holds the princess role it supports the conventions of women being objectified by men. 

Ollie: Both the male characters are fighting for her to be theirs. Like she is a prize. 

Sophie: We also used a high angle shot when Anastasia and Damien are first shown together on screen to show that he is in control of her. He possesses dominance.

Sam: Dylan is the one to save Anastasia so it makes females out to be incapable of looking after themselves and like they need a man to protect them.

Ollie: To make Anastasia seem like a conventional teenage girl, we dressed her in a very westernized costume and she fits in with today's fashion trends, as you can see in the last reverse zoom shot she is wears popular brands like Adidas. We decided to follow the idea then teenagers are quite often seen as homogenous.

Esme: It shows that like most teenagers or like the stereotypical teenager, she wants to fit in by wearing the latest fashion and wearing well known brands.

Sophie: Also in the zoom shot of Anastasia in bed you can see that the first thing she does when she wakes up is go on her phone. Like its the most important thing for her to do when she wakes up.

Sam: It supports the ideology of teenagers being consumed by technology and social media.

Ollie: We used two over the shoulder shots of Anastasia looking in the mirror, which supported the idea that teenagers are obsessed with their appearence and that they are vain.

Esme: We dressed Damien in all dark colours to show the audience that he is the antagonist.

Sam: As his identity isn't revealed we didn't really do much else to represent him in a certain way other than using different shots and angles.

Sophie: In the wide shot angle of him and Anastasia walking down the street he looks a lot bigger than her, which shows his dominance.

Ollie: We also created this show of dominance in the over the shoulder, high angle shot of him looking at Anastasia. He again looks a lot bigger than her.

Esme: In the POV shot, half of his body isn't in it which could suggest to the audience that he is in a different world to Anastasia or conventional teenagers.

Sam: Which foreshadows to the audience that he keeps himself to himself, it is only until later on in the plot that the audience would find out that he suffers with the psychological disease: Schizophrenia.

Sophie: We wanted to represent Anastasia as a conventional teenage character so that the audience can relate to her and connect with her. They will be able to understand her so much more and may even see qualities they possess in her.

Ollie: It is a key factor in creating a likeable character, which we wanted in her because she is the main character. They will be able to empathise with her a whole lot more because if they like her they will begin to feel everything she feels and will begin to want her to return to her normal life.

Esme: Damien is made to be an unconventional character because it will bring more shock to him, which we wanted the audience to feel. It will make the wait for the revealing of his identity highly tense.

Sophie: The audience will feel shocked at the fact that a young boy could be capable of such things. Usually adult males are used as the antagonist.

Sam: It just really emphasises how much power and dominance he has, because he is only young but still manages to do everything that he does.

Ollie: And that is how our media product represents particular social groups, thankyou for listening! 

     

How Have I Improved From The Preliminary Material to The Full Product of ( Evaluation Question 7 By Esme)

First Day of Filming (16/12/15)

Today we shot our first lot of filming. Me, Ollie and Sophie went to the location of our opening sequence. It went quite well, we didn't film very much because we had a limited amount of time. We used various different shots for example a point of view shot, close ups, extreme close ups and long shots.

Firstly I had to get into my costume and make-up we did the bruises and cuts using eyeshadow, contour powder and fake blood. Once it was all done, we took all the equipment up into the attic and began filming. We didn't have a large amount of time so we had to get things done very quickly. Ollie and Sophie did the filming whilst I was acting.

We didn't get everything done so we will have to do it again on another day. However we did get quite a lot done for the amount of time we had. Having the start of the footage, we could begin editing until we shot more.

Costume Changes

In the scene of Anastasia in Dylan's attic we decided to chose a different costume to the outfit in the scene of the 'equilibrium' to make it very clear to the audience that when the flash forward of the disruption is shown, it is on a different day to the following scene shown of Anastasia being okay and happy. We chose the costume to be light colours to again show the audience that dispite all the blood, dirt and briuses on her, she is the good character and not the bad. It is also a modern and fashionable outfit. 

White shoes to show that she is a good character and to connote her purity and innocence. The colour white gives this impression because people often match white with angelic symbols and we really wanted Anastasia to have this 'good girl' reputation. They are also a branded shoe (Adidas). Showing this brand on our character will really appeal to our primary audience because it is a very popular and modern brand, which a lot of teenagers/young adults wear or like. It will help us appeal to the 'Mainstreamer' group, as according to Young and Rubicam's audience classification system; the mainstreamers enjoy value for money and fitting in with everyone else. This is often through things like wearing well known brands, which is what Anastasia is doing herself. Therefore allowing the audience to connect with her because they will feel like they are like her because she is wearing the same shoe/brand as them. It supports the Colonist theory because of the fact that she is wearing western fashion and a brand that is popular in western countries.

Make-up

We used eyeshadow and a grey contour powder to create bruises on my forehead and near my mouth. We wanted to show the audience how much danger Anastasia is in and that she is severely hurt. The bruises show them that is they aren't fresh injuries and that they were inflicted on her some time ago. So it shows them that the Antagonist has kept her locked up for a long period of time. It also shows that Damien is very violent and shows them that he is an angry and aggressive person.

We bought fake blood to use. We used this for the deep wounds on her leg and stomach. Also dripping from her head, eyebrow and ears. The look of the fresh blood suggests to the audience that they are fresh wounds, unlike the bruises. We needed to establish that Damien is constantly hurting her and is nearly always violent. The audience can be 100% clear from this that the injuries were not just a one off thing, the antagonists aggressiveness and violence is a consistant thing.

The 'Concealed' Title Sequence

Psychotic Productions Company Logo

This is our final title sequence for 'Psychotic Productions'. We used LiveType to make it.

Evaluation of Prelim Material

Before the preliminary task, the only experience I held within filming and editing was from the practice piece that me and my group had done. So I knew very little other than the basics of how to record footage. In terms of editing I had learnt the practice piece how to organize the shots into the order we desired and how to cut the footage that we did not want out.

In terms of planning, we did not actually do any. Therefore we had not done any storyboards or scriptwriting. We very quickly discovered that planning is absolutely key because it makes the whole process a lot quicker and easier. We has to think of everything on a spot, the way we wanted to shot things, the angles we wanted to get, the dialogue between the two characters. It was very difficult to quickly come up with all these ideas. The biggest problem was having no script. It was really hard for Sam and Ollie to think of the dialogue on the spot and to actually remember the lines that they had said. On the first take, they completed the first conversation perfectly fine. However, once it came to the stage of repeating the conversation with exactly the same dialogue it proved a problem. We very quickly realised that we needed a script in order to get the conversation spot on both times. So we wrote down the lines of Ollie and Sam's characters, they both had a script each. They quickly learnt their lines and we began take 2 of the conversation. We overcame this simple but significant problem quickly and definitely learnt that we needed to plan ahead rather than leaving everything till the day we actually shot the scene.

Whilst actually filming the preliminary material, I came to grips with all the different camera shots that can actually be used. During the preliminary material we had to ensure that in the sequence the 180 degree rule was correctly used. I realised the best way to get around this was to film one of the characters whilst they were partaking in dialogue with another character. Then replicate the conversation, however, have the other character in the shot. In order to successfully follow the rule of sticking to one side of the imaginary 180 degree line.

Next came the editing, which was much trickier than the filming. We had to include a couple of editing techniques, such as:
Shot/Reverse shot editing - which is cutting between shots of the two different characters in dialogue.
Action Match editing - this is when an action takes place throughout two different shots. It is important to cut the shots smoothly to hide the cut from the audience.
We successfully included both. We included the shot/reverse shot in a conversation between Sam and Ollie's characters. Also the action match editing was included throughout. It was featured frequently in a scene of Ollie walking through a door into a room. It was quite time consuming at first, as we had to get the hang of cutting the shots in exactly the right place to make the sequence flow smoothly.

We didn't play around with sound at all in the preliminary. We felt it wasn't particularly necessary in the context of the material. The most we did to it was cutting the dialogue between Sam and Ollie up into the separate lines of the individual characters and moved them to fit with the correct shots. We had to make sure what was on screen was in sync with the diegetic sound, so that it would look smooth and realistic. We didn't include any non-diegetic sound because we wanted the main focus of the audience to be the actions of Ollie's character and the dialogue that him and Sam's character shared.

The finishing look of the preliminary material is up to a polished standard. The main strength to it was the way in which all of the shots were edited smoothly into each other. We also successfully included all the elements that were required. However, it is clear that good actors must be used in films. Whilst Ollie was very serious during the film and he sounds relatively annoyed, his facial expressions didn't match his tone of voice. He just had a straight face and there was no display of anger or annoyance.

When we get round to our actual production, we will guarantee that we do as much planning as possible. It will make it a lot easier and quicker in the long run, rather than just jumping or rushing straight into filming and editing. We will go into it having a rough idea of how we want the sequence to look and what we want to take place in the opening sequence. We will also make sure we carefully select actors that are convincing, so that it doesn't look cheesy and to make sure it is believable and griping for the audience. In terms of what we will do the same, we will remember how to edit all the shots appropriately and included a various selection of shots to showcase our skills.

Costumes and Props By Ollie Clark

Scene 1:

In the Attic

Characters- Anastasia and Damien

COSTUMES:

*Anastasia

White top, Jeans, trainers

-We have elected to use the white top because white symbolises purity and innocence and that is the way we want to present Anastasia in order for the audience to sympathise with her and her situation.

-We chose to dress her in jeans because it is important that we convey to the audience how normal she is and how well she kept up with teenage fashion. Our audience would assume from this that she is someone they can relate too and she seems like a realistic character.

-In addition we have put her in trainers in the interest of comfort to our actor but also because it will keep her in tune with current teenage attire.

*Damien

Black t-shirt, black hoodie, black gilet, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers

-The theme of black in the whole of his costume suggests he has a dark personality and also a desire to keep his identity hidden from the girl for as long as possible. Also black is associated with gothic people and so this gives him a certain gothic side to his personality as well as adding an intimidating feel.

-Hoodies are associated with teenagers and especially troublesome teenagers so therefore we have elected to follow the dominant ideology and dress him in a hoodie as the antagonist.

-Tracksuit bottoms are seen as casual attire so this will enforce the fact that he feels relaxed when in control and in an environment he knows.

PROPS:

*Damien will have a knife to make himself seem more intimidating and has to be seen with a weapon to show he is a truly dangerous and mentally challenged antagonist.

*Rugged old chair for Anastasia to be tied to make the scene seem more realistic.

*Some form of rope or tape to tie her to the chair because the audience has to see that it would be difficult to escape.

*Typical cellar stuff such as old pictures, old books and other things that aren't used.

Scene 2:

In her bedroom

Characters- Anastasia

COSTUMES:

*Anastasia

Grey top, jeans and trainers

-The idea behind this whole costume is to enforce the fact that she is keeping up with the fashion, feels comfortable and portrays a slightly innocent character.

PROPS:

*Damien will have a newspaper to make it look like he is occupied when in fact it is just a disguise and he is actually peering round the side and trying to look at Anastasia.

Script

Concealed Script 

Scene 1 

Voicemails

DYLAN     Where are you? I've just got back.

DYLAN      Haven't heard from you all night! What have I done?!    

DYLAN      I've spoke to your mum... your not at home? Where are you?! 

DYLAN      Please just let me know your safe!

Prelim Material

This is our preliminary material.

Location Recce

The attic is the main location of our film. We love the whole look of the attic. There are so many different elements that make it the perfect set for our opening sequence. Referring to Barthes Code Theory, the attic will leave the audience with plenty of semantic codes. These our vital considering the first thing the audience will see is Anastasia in the attic.

They will need some clues as to what is going on, even if they cannot make complete sense of it all. The dirty and broken floor boards will tell the audience that Anastasia is in a bad place and she is in danger because the connotations of dirtiness and broken objects are that things are not right.

 There are also cobwebs all over the windows and in the broken floorboards, which will give the audience a sense of fear, due to the association of cobwebs to spiders. An animal in which many people fear. It also gives the impression that the attic has been untouched for a very long time and that it is not usually used or visited by people, giving the hint that Anastasia is being kept away from others.













We will also have a scene of Anastasia in her bedroom. This will be to show the audience that the scene in the attic was a flash forward to the 'disruption' and that the film will now return to the 'equilibrium' and will now follow Todorov's narrative theory, whereby the plot is set out in the following order:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• Resolution 
• New equilibrium

The location that we have chosen for Anastasia's bedroom is my actual bedroom. We felt this was the perfect place to do it as my bedroom is predominantly covered in light colours. The walls and carpet are a very light grey. All the furniture is white. Having a lot of light colours, especially white, signifies Anastasia's purity and innocence. It shows the audience that she is a good character, which needs to be established following the first scene because she is very dirty and heart. She is also in a dark and dirty location so some of the audience may misinterpret her as what Propp would refer to as the 'Antagonist' because these are usually the connotions associated to a bad character. The second location will reassure the audience as to the fact that she is a good character and present her as another character role from Propp's character theory: the 'Prince/Prize' because they will see how she was in trouble in the first scene and in the second scene they will see that she is actually a innocent and desired character. We provided the text from Dylan our protagonist as an action code, to hint to the character that he is her rescuer and that she is desired by the male characters. There are also big mirrors to give the audience the impression that she takes care in her appearence and cares about how she looks to others. There are also cosmetics lying around her room such as: makeup, perfumes etc. These again show the audience how she take care of her appearence. Suggesting to the audience that she could be quite a popular girl in school, as often teenagers who are classed as popular are often stereotypically labelled as being vain and egotistic. 

There will then be a very short moment when you see Anastasia and Damien walking down the street outside. This was the road that I live down. There are lots of trees down my road and as it is winter they are all bare of leaves which really helped give that eerie affect. It is also a fairly quiet road so there was no by passers, which really helped hint to the audience that Damien was going to keep Anastasia away from the rest of the world and that very soon she would only have his company. 

All these locations were either near my house or in my house so they were extremely easy to access and there was no trouble in finding the ideal place. 

There was so members of the public that interfered whilst filming the scene outside, therefore we did not have to ask anyone for permission to film there or ask people to avoid the shot. However when filming in my house, my family were often very loud and it was heard to film and not get the sound of them talking etc. in the shot, especially my 4 year-old niece who kept crying and interrupting our filming. However luckily we didn't want to include any usual dialogue or sounds and we edited in all non-diegetic and diegetic sounds afterwards. 

The only way to get in to my attic is by a very shaky and unstable ladder, which was quite dangerous especially when taking things like lamps and the camera equipment up and down. To overcome this the boys went up first and then me and Sophie handed up anything we needed to take up and followed up after them. We also had to be very careful where we stood because there were nails on the floor and some of the floorboards we broken. We used the nails to our advantage and included it in our opening sequence as a prop. However there was not really anything particular that we could do with the broken floorboards, we just ensured that we avoided standing near them or in them. We also included shots of these in the opening sequence to really emphasise how much danger Anastasia is in.

Story Board

Overton Grange Cribs (Practice Filming and Editing)

'Concealed' Opening Sequence

This our finished opening sequence for 'Concealed'.

Shot List

We chose to use the following shots in our opening sequence:

• An extreme close-up of Anastasias eye, this was to really make the audience connect with how she is feeling and instantly create empathy. It is important to make this connection happen instantly so that the audience will like Anastasia as a character. It is also to make the audience feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable, therefore showing that she is in a bad situation and also  establishing the genre of the film.
• We used a high angle shot of the first time the audience get to see the antagonist and Anastasia in the same shot together. We wanted to communicate to the audience that the antagonist has a hold over Anastasia, so this shot makes her look really tiny in comparison to him. Showing that he is more superior.
• Another shot we have used is a mixture between a head-on-shot and a hand-held shot, to enhance the realism and involvement of the audience. It will make it very engaging for them because it will almost feel like they are there, in Anastasia's place. It will then make it a lot easier for them to empathise with her.
• A reverse zoom shot was used at the end to focus the audiences attention on the antagonist and highlight the fact that he is an important factor to the story because they have not yet seen his face. They can only identity that it is him by the costume.

15/01/16

Today we are filming for the final time. We've prepared for the filming, we have bought some fake blood and are making sure we have plenty of lights around to avoid being in the same situation as before!

We did our first lot of filming at school, we couldn't film where we originally wanted to because the sports hall was being used so we changed location to outside. We did some extreme long shots of Anastasia and a friend. We also did a shot of her walking to school and Damien following closely behind her. After these were completed we carried on filming in our original location: my attic.

This time we made 100% sure that all our shots we light enough and that the lighting was consistent. We were successful! Every shot was perfectly lit and make shadows really bold. It took as a lot quicker to get all the filming done because we already knew what we wanted to get on film. It took us about 2 and a half hours all together.

It was a successful day of filming.

18/01/16

We have one day till our deadline. There is still a large amount to do, however if we really work hard we will get it done! We will have to spend nearly all day tomorrow completing the last bits of work.

Today we uploaded our last lot of footage and began editing the opening to 'Concealed'. We didn't to a massive amount of editing, due to the fact that we needed to decide the order that we wanted to put all the footage we got into.

We got it into the order that we wanted and we had ran out of time to do any more editing so we will continue tomorrow and hopefully complete it in time?

Production Company Logo Initial Idea

We have chosen to name our production company: 'Psychotic Productions'. This is our initial idea for the logo.

The background is black, we wanted to show the audience that the production company's films are usually in the Thriller genre. Therefore the black helps to give the dark and scary ambience that we wanted to create. Dark colours are also conventionally used in thrillers, so it helps to establish the genre.

The font that we are hoping to use is quite sharp and looks almost like its been scratched onto the background rather than written. Again providing an eerie auora. It looks like the words were written with aggression, we wanted to make it almost look like an Antagonist had written it. Again creating a sense of fear for the audience before the film has even begun.

We included a bloodshot eye and a large grin amongst the words to pose as the letters 'O' and 'U'. The teeth in the grin are dirty, to signify that these body parts are from an antagonist and that this antagonist is 'psychotic'. The dirtiness and the red bloodshot in the eye presents an evil sort of feel to these body parts. Grins are often associated with evil/psychotic people because its like the grin is menacing rather than happy, giving a creepy and uncomfortable feel to the audience.

Beginning of Editing 14/01/16

Today we finally uploaded our footage to final cut express. Straight away we could see that hardly any of our footage could be used because of the lighting. It was extremely dark almost to the point where we cannot see a thing. This is the first major problem we have experienced! We have had to come up with a quick solution in order for us to meet the approaching deadline.

There is luckily some footage that we can use for our final opening. We have salvaged a few shots that we took by increasing the brightness and decreasing the contrast on the filter over the shot. Our solution to the problem is to just completely start over. It is risky and we will have to get a large amount done in a shot space of time, however it is the best solution we could think of.

First things first we have booked out the camera for tomorrow (Friday). We are going to do some filming during school and after school. Unfortunately, we will not be able to start editing until Monday due to having no access to the Apple Macs. In the mean time we are beginning to make our title screen and production company logo on the Live Type software.

2nd Day Of Filming 05/01/16

Today was our second and final day of filming. Me, Sam and Ollie left school at 2:05 pm and set off to go to our location: my loft. We picked up the camera and the tripod and walked to my house.

Once we arrived the first thing we did was get my make-up ready, which involved using eye shadow and contour powder to create bruises on my body. There was some on my neck, on my chin, and my forehead. We also put some fake blood on my head, and created stab wounds on my leg and my waist using the fake blood. We just tied my hair back into a ponytail. My costume was a light pair of denim high waist jeans and a white top with blue stripes. We wanted the costume to be light to signify her innocence and purity as Anastasia is the good character. It also emphasises the effect of the blood and the injuries on her, which shows the audience she is in great danger.

 Following the costume and make-up, we went up into the loft and began filming straight away. It generally went quite well. We managed to shoot everything we planned to. The main problem we faced was the lighting because when we started filming we were using the natural light coming in from the windows. The problem was that from about half 3 it got dark very quickly and we had to begin to use a torch to light up the room. However we used this to our advantage because using the torch enabled us to create vivid shadows. I also had problems with trying to get myself to cry, so we used vaporub to bring me to tears. I put a small amount around my eyes and on my eyelashes and it worked! Stupidly Ollie and Sam wanted to see if it would work on them and decided to put it on their actual eye, for a good five minutes they were moaning about how much pain they were in and how it wasn't stopping.

Overall, we had a very successful day of filming and got everything done that we planned to do.