THE MOTHERLOAD!

Alright, so here is the bulk of the project, which seems to have piled itself into one MASSIVE blog post.

Storyboards

First up is something that should have really been done during the planning stages, but due to technical difficulties, deleted itself.

But I have now redone it, and so I proudly present the storyboards for the opening. The clips in the video are nowhere near the planned lengths, this is mearly me explaining the boards. They are however in order XD.



Example Shots

Next I have some shots evidencing my work in the actual making of the film, so I'll embed the clip, then comment on it below (These comments are mirrored on the information on the videos page on youtube, in case something isn't working properly :S).




Alright. So in this clip, I was manning the camera, and trying to get our actor, Emma, to put as much effort into breaking down that door as possible :P.

This clip shows two takes of the same songs, along with my comments to Emma between. I feel that shows that while using the camera, I was able to give effective feedback as the director to convey to our actor how to get the most out of the scene.




This clip may be long and silly, but it is still a good shot in the end.

I feel that this shot shows a nice contrast to the previous clip, Showing that i can work in a much more versatile way. Whereas the last clip was static, being shot on a tripod. This shot is freehand, and I'm taking orders from the director at the time, Phil. This shows that I am able to work with others well.



This shot shows my editing skills. The original clip wasn't nearly atmospheric enough, so editing the brightness, contrast and lighting to create a much darker tone.

Test Screening

Upon getting a roughly finished version of our film edited and rendered, we put together a test screening one lunchtime. At this screening we gave out popcorn and drinks, screened our film opening, and gave out

Test Screening Results

And now time for an in depth analysis.

Age + Gender

These sections were put in to determine whether our test audience fitted within the target audience that we planned the film for. The majority of our audience fitted into the mid region of our 15 - 23 years target. However we had more females than males. This isn't perfect, because our intended primary audience were males, with females being a secondary. But it all still gave us useful feedback.

1. Do you enjoy watching films?

This question was really put in to separate the wheat from the chaff. If someone didn't enjoy films, the answers to certain sections would probably be biased due to a dislike of the medium. However if they said they didn't like films, but enjoyed our opening, it would have been brillaint :P.

2. What is your favourite genre of film?

Looking at the results for this question meant that we could determine whether people from the test group were already fans of the genre we were aiming for. I was suprised by the amount of variation from person to person, but overall just over 50% of our audience were already fans of thriller or horror films.

The reason for it being thriller AND horror is because our film is a hybrid genre, if that wasn't already made clear by previous blog posts.

3. What is your first impression of the film.

With over 80% of our test audience giving the film a Good or Very Good rating, and none below moderate, it's safe to say that our film opening definitely sparked an interest in our testers.

4. Would you go to see this film in the cinema?

With 58% of our tester saying they would see the film in the cinema, that still leaves nearly half saying they wouldn't. At first glance, this would seem negative, but looking back at question 2, it can be seen that we have converted 5% of the audience into liking the film without it being of a genre they usually like, which i think is an achievement.

5. Is the plot clear so far?

With nearly a third of our test audience saying they didn't understand the plot, I can only say that this is understandable. With it only being the opening 2 minutes, it is safe to say that the plot wouldn't be completely clear so far.

6. Do you think the setting was appropriate?

A quarter of our audience said that the setting wasn't sinister enough. When planning the film, we tried to choose a setting that the audience would be familiar with (which one tester saw as being a negative trait) so that the audience could empathize with it. However, we did try to alter this familiarity with low key light, and edited this even futher after receiving this feedback.

7. What did you think of the music used?

100% of our music feedback was good, with only one comment made about a section of diegetic sound towards the end. This was the first thing to be fixed when we got back to work XD

8. Does the editing make it flow?

This was the area that I feel got the most useful feedback from. The points made here were the parts of the film which we hadn't managed to perfect before the screening, and with the testers pointing out key areas, we were able to fix most of the areas through re-edits and spare clips.

9. What age group do you think this film is aimed at?

This question was pretty much added in as an after thought. The reasoning behind it is that if the age group we screen it for don't think it's for them, then there's something wrong somewhere. Interestingly it worked out that most people thought it would be aimed at a slightly younger age group. But seeing as this is only the opening, more adult themes would have been introduced in the full film that would probably increase this.

Final Cut

So after all of this careful planning, hard work, feedback and more hard work, we come to a final product. Enjoy.



But like any good project, there needs to be an evaluation.

Evaluation

This is probably the only time the whole team appear in one segement :P.So I hope you enjoy it, and the prject as whole. Wish us luck!