Our Sequence

Creative critical reflection Task 4: How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online- in this project?

 To complete the 4th CCR Task I've created a website:

Click here to acsess the website

I didnt ebnend this website so blogger wouldn't struggle loading all of the content.

Creative critical reflection Task 3: How did your production skills develop throughout this production?

 If created a Prezi to answer this task: 

During the pre production stage of my coursework I produced a short video or podcast each week about the key learnings, form said week during a time span of four weeks:

Podcast 30th of January 2022:

Podcast 6th of February 2022:

Video-Podcast 20th of February 2022:

Video 27th of February 2022:

Creative critical reflectionTask 2: How dose your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

 Previously on this blog I tried to define the person who most likely enjoy our fictional media product. 

 

 

I created this PowerPoint in the week after shoot day. Looking back now my answer would most likely stay the same. Except for less emphasis on the action elements. In the edit we emphasised the comedy and Horror elements more than action. This would most likely leave us with a primarily male audience between the ages of 15 to 25. Living in a more rural area due to the location of our film. These is off course just the primary target audience, people outside of this audience may very likely enjoy the movie the same amount or even more. 

 

Our sequence features multiple moments and or themes  that highlight how ‘Requiem for Peace’ would be appealing to our target audience: 

 

One moment through which our sequence would engage with the previously described demographic is the murder right at the start.
It is a instant thrill. As a murder is probably one or even the most intense thing a person can experience. The imitation of this is often partly the main selling point not only for so called ‘slasher’ films but also many video games. How engaging these moments in media texts are is evident because of viral movie kill count videos. The brutality of the murder is highlighted and emphasised through the pleonastic diegetic stabbing sound effects. 

 

A convention we used which applies to Roland Berths enigma code is the constant usage of mystery elements. We tried to confuse the audience at the start of the film as much as possible in order for them to ask questions like why dose the entire village seem to be okay, with a man covered in blood walking around the village? This makes the audience engage more actively with our product as they start thinking about and analysing our product.

  

Our killer is a middle-aged man which is quite common in horrors. He is in many ways supposed to remind the audience of many iconic horror villains like Michal Myers or Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13^th.  By using a similar to other horror movies and stereotypical character the audience can easily understands who the killer is making it easier for them to focus on and Comprehended the rest of the scene. This easy to understand convention enables the audience to connect our product to other media text they previously consumed and enjoyed.  We remind them of what they as an audience like in order to then instantly present a new version of what they already like. 

 

Entertainment theorists like Berthold Brecht argue that comedy is one if not the best way to engage an audience. This off course also applies to our audience and how we tried to engage them with our product. The comedy is key for this as it highlights absurdity and acknowledges it. Also comedy is hopefully also simply fun. 

 

Our sequence features one Teenagers and the rest of the picture would go on to interduce us to other young adult character, who would be the focus for the rest of the film. In real life but also on screen we engage and connect with characters we relate to. Age is an easy way to do so. Which for example is the reason why many shows for Teenagers are said in a school as it reflects their own world. By having young protagonists, we try to relate and thereby engage with the audience. 

 

If we were to redo the sequence with maybe even a budget and more possibility’s I belief that we should have added more of a splatter mood to our product as the killing in our sequence is not really explicit. By using more Splatter conventions we might be able to engage our audience better. I also belief we should have added more humour, comedic elements to our sequence which in my opinion was partly missing in our sequence to fully engage our target demographic.

Centrale to my Poster design is the young adult cast. I highlighted them in hope of instantly appealing to the audience. As well as the conflict of generations which is hinted at through the priest in the background with and evil smirk. As already discussed through characters which are the same age as our target audience we try to engage them but also through the generation conflict witch has been going on basically since the start of our society but still seems as relevant as ever with many young people feeling as if they are being left with a world in shedders. Because of this conflicts relevancy I believe that the poster design could hint at a engaging part of the film. Their weapons are quite comedic. This offcouse highlights the comedy parts of. The movie while especially the male leads facial expressions in addition to the red backdrop hint a scarry or horror movie. 

 

The stylised low opacity cross hiding the priest is supposed to remind the viewer of a black bar which is often used to hide the identity of  a criminal in TV shows. This links to the nowadays quite popular quite flaudimage of the curch due to many scandals in the last few centaury’s.  I chose to make the cross be see-through as the actor portraying the priest would be most likely the most recognisable performer, his appearance on the poster therefore makes the movie more appealing to a larger audience. His name is also the first name a potential audience member would see when reading the top billing actors. The gothic titles I used are supposed to link our Film to old classic gothic horrors. The relasdate is said shortly before Halloween as this would be the time were the most people are in a horror mood. The comedic elements of our poster would differentiate it from others. The tagline would then define the style of comedy.  

 

 

Previously on this blog (in the blog post 'preparation for evaluation tasks') I talked about which studio would most likely distribute our product, I focused on the location and size of our production as well as the quite regional or national topics and elements. In the end I decided that a company like Bulldog film distribution would most likely be the best fit for our production. As they focus primarily on independent distribution in the UK. But nowadays I think a direct to streaming release might also be a great Option. Shudder is a streaming service who focus on Horror content. Amongst other things they produced 2020s ‘Host’ directed by Rob Savage. Host was a small independent production similar to what our product would most likely be. Both are horrors. But our film is maybe most importantly a comedy. Sky just acquired the rights to Nick Gillespie’s 2021 film ‘Paul Dudes Deadly lunch break’. A dark independent British comedy. Which would also perfectly describe our product. Therefore, and because sky would enable our product a wide international audience I belief that ‘Requiem for Peace’ should be published on Sky. 

 

 

But in order for our product to even be able to get a SKY deal we would need to distribute it to different film festivals which more Specifically focus on either or independent productions, British productions, comedy and or horrors. When a company would decide to realise our product the focus of the marketing campaign should most likely be the internet and more specifically social media. Our films own Instagram would be the first step to do so. Exclusive comedic videos of our more famous actor and the tow young adult leads should be advertised on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. These platforms enable advertisers to specifically target. Their target audiences. I would also keep a clear mainly red white and black colour palate on all of our advertisement. Red and black/darkens  are typical  horror colours while the white would offer a clear contrast. The comedic elemt would then be highlighted by pictures of our lead actors with highted gestures and facial expressions as well as wired weapons. In generall I would mainly focus on the intrent when it comes to the marketing campaign as our young audience is most active there and especially when we realise our product on a streaming service our film would only be a few clicks away. But also niche film magazines, like Empire could be a great marketing opertunety for our product as it is a parodie on other films wich offoucrse appeals to people who are intresead in films.  

 

Creative Critical Reflection Task 1: How dose your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

 

Day six of editing

 Today was the final day of editing. we started out colour grading our sequence luckily we could use the same grading for all of the external shots and then adjusted it for the church scene.    

There were still some ruff patches. For example after listening to the sequence with headphones we noticed that we still needed to adjust the audio in some parts which turned out to be a bit of a hustle because we didn’t record atmosphere sound on the day which led to the some transitions of audio clips just not sounding great. Especially because we had to boost up some dialogue audios but after trying a view different things we found a way to create a good sound design using some normal fades and the constant power effect. Because we shortened the length of the church bells I then suggested to adjust the duration of the establishing shot of the church otherwise the paste would have shifted in a wired way. 

 

We then focused on the titles in order to make them more stylized we used the font that we had used for the gothic title card now for all of the credits. This lead to some problems as premier for some reason mixed up some sizes so we had go through each one of them and adjust the size. Bert suggested to let the titles fade in and out which looked great. We then moved on to fade every first letter of a first and second name red after James killed the victim suggesting that the red text in the way is blood spilling on the credit. We then also changed the colour of the title credit from white to red this fitted the style of our scene and made the title more readable. We then decided to add a few blood drops to one letter at the end again adding to the hot fuzz over stylized vibe we were going for and suddenly we were done!

How are titles presented?

 The way and order titles are presented in opening title sequences can vastly change depending on genre and production size according to studiobinder.com the most common way of listing opening titles is in the folowing order:  

1. PRODUCTION COMPANY presents (distributor)
2. a PRODUCTION COMPANY production (producer)
3. a FILMMAKER film
4. Film Title
5. Lead Cast
6. Supporting Cast
7. Casting Director
8. Music Composer
9. Costume Designer
10. Associate Producers
11. Editors
12. Production Designer
13. Director of Photography
14. Executive Producer
15. Producer
16. Writers
17. Director

 

As success in the film industry often depends not only on knowing people but also to be known, all creatives would like to see their name first and most importantly clearly readable. This leads to discussions about placement of the credits being made even before the movie has been shot. Making movies is expensive, the people who finance movies or organise the financing tend to appear first.  

As previously mentioned, the way credits are being presented depends on the kind of film. For example in order to not disturb from the very emotionally charged opening of Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino presents the titles not during the opening scene but in an additional sequence. 

 

 Tarnation’s film are stylized. Inglorious Basterds is set in the second world war.  Therefore, the titles seem to be a heightened version of the popular typography of the time mixed with extreme colours like the Yellow which doesn’t makes sense in a historical context but hligthes Tarnation’s bowled style. This goes to show how titles alone can transport a lot of meaning even if they’re on their own.

A product more similar to ours ‘Zombieland’ demonstrates its titles in bold attention grabbing colours during the opening scene, they’re integrated. This seems to be happening quit often in the action/horror  comedy genre we are going for. For example ‘The suicided squad’ directed by James Gun presents its titles in a bright orange colour with small cuts within the typography. These suite the mood and feeling James Gun is famous for (,80s nostalgia). The titles are carefully placed to fit and enhance the framing and look of the sequence and partly present opposition to the dark lighting.