Things to do before 4th January

Today Mr Henton got his nag on and reminded us that we all have to keep up to date with our blogs if we want to get a decent grade. He talked us through some of the key things that our blogs will need to contain, and how detailed our blog posts need to be. There are a list of things that need to be completed for January 4th:


Script for your film opening set out in the correct way, photographed and posted to your blog. It would be a good idea to take some photos of you in the discussion, production stages of this too.

Storyboard for your film opening. This needs to be completed on the KBA Media Studies Storyboard sheets which can be collected from me or the reprographics room. Again, support the evidence of this taking place with posts detailing how you created the storyboard and the decisions you made along the way. The storyboard will include details relating to camera shots, angle and movement as well as sound and location. Don't just post pictures of the completed sheets, detail the process as it develops.

Location planning needs to take place. This should be done carefully and needs to show that you have 'scouted' different potential locations and thought of the pros and cons of these. Bear in mind things such as accessibility, lighting, etc and evidence these thoughts on your blog.

Casting should be detailed unless there is no evidence of a person at any point in your opening. Think about the casting process and how you can evidence this creatively on your blog. You can take photos but, perhaps, can also video your casting sessions or record audio of your thoughts.

Once all of this has been done you move into the LOGISTICAL phase of your planning. These means sorting out the what, when and where.

A Filming Schedule will detail what needs to be filmed, when you plan to do this and where the filming will happen. It will also take into account the props you will need to acquire for each shoot.

Before you actually go and film you also need a Risk Assessment and Shot List for each filming session. The former ensures you have considered health and safety risks whilst the latter sets out, literally, a list of all the shots that need to be captured during that filming session.

Film Opening Ideas

In today's lesson, we began to think about how we are going to produce our Main Task.
Our Main Task is to create a 2-3 minute film opening using the camera shots and different editing techniques that we have been learning about.


Myself and Lauren filled a whole sheet of A4 paper with ideas and planning for our Main Task (photo below). We thought about previous film openings that we had watched and pieced lots of different ideas together. We have been discussing the opening titles, which sequence they will appear in, the music we will be using in the background, any voice-overs that may be included, and different shots that we will be putting into the opening that will hopefully tell some of the story without having to watch the whole film. We hope to make our opening interesting and effective.

Film Opening Timeline

We were handed a sheet today that had 3 different sections on it. These were "TITLES", "AUDIO" and "VISUALS". We watched the opening of the film 'SE7EN' and broke it down into these different sections. 
We filled the timeline in with the opening titles, in order of appearance, the audio heard in the first few minutes and the visual effects used. This breaking down of the opening helped us to understand how effective these 3 sections will be when creating our own film openings.


*I will place a picture here once my sheet is completed*

60 Second Pitch - Audience Response

Lauren and I showed our 60 Second Pitch to two of our friends, Rachel Cowie and Laura Johnson, aged 16-17. This sort of age falls straight into our target audience! Woohoo!

Our 60 Second Pitch was a clip of me and Lauren talking about our idea for our teen horror film, Project : Shadow. The video of our pitch can be seen on my 60 Second Pitch post.

We showed the video of our pitch to Rachel and Laura and asked their opinions - what they thought of the idea, what they liked about it, what they thought we could improve on, etc etc. Below are their responses.




Rachel Cowie: I think it is a great idea, although it's very typical of a horror film. I feel I could relate to the characters as could my friends, it would be a great film to watch with the girls. I also feel that the film would be something to remember, because the actors used in the film would be of our own age range and it would make us more aware of our surroundings.' 












Laura Johnson: "I'm not too keen on the concept. I think they could have been more creative and pushed the boundries more; maybe if they changed the killer into a ghost or shadow, as I prefer more psychological horrors. However I do feel that having a group of girls as the main characters in the film will relate well to the target audience of teenagers."

Preliminary Task

Untitled from Lauren Head on Vimeo.

Looking at Opening Titles

In today's lesson we looked at Opening Titles and what effect they have on the viewing audience. Opening Titles are the titles that come up on the screen within the first few minutes of a film - but they are not necessarily used in every film. However, it is rare for a film to not have any opening titles.

Opening titles give information to the viewers, such as the title of the film, who is involved within the film's production company, the name of the distribution company, the name of the director, the actors that are in the film, maybe even the time that the film is set in. They can also set the scene or give an idea of the genre before the film really begins, to draw the viewers in to the remainder of the film.  

An opening we studied in detail is the opening of the film Dawn of The Dead. We watched the first 2 minutes and picked up several opening titles:

First to appear was the name of the distribution company - Universal Pictures. The film title came afterwards, followed by the individual names of the actors. Then came casting by, music by, costume designer, co producer, editor, production designer, and director of photography. All of these were shown only in the first two minutes.

However, we also looked at the beginning of Zombieland - but this has no opening titles whatsoever.

60 Second Pitch

We had to complete the task of creating an idea for a teen horror film that later on, we will develop and produce. To promote our idea clearly, and to find a way of getting good constructive feedback, we were asked to shorten our idea down into 60 seconds, which Mr Henton (who was acting as an important production person from Caveman films) filmed on his iPad, and showed to the rest of the class.



We decided on the name Project : Shadow.
The film is about two girls who have to make a film project for their media class (relevant and simple!). The girls venture into the woods to begin filming, and they start seeing things which begin to scare them. The atmosphere suddenly changes completely, things become dark and eerie, and shadows are seen drifting around. As the film progresses, the girls begin to figure out what the shadows' intentions really are, and the film follows them on their journey of trying to escape from the shadows' clutches, as their world slowly caves in around them.



Me and Lauren shortened our idea down into different main events/ main points, and developed a small script. We took this with us when going to record our pitch so that we had reminders of the main events, and we had a breakdown of the idea. This made it so much easier to promote our film idea clearly. Below is the script.




Kim - Our film is called Project : Shadow. Our film is set in a small town in 2011.
Lauren - A group of girls have the task of creating a horror film for school.
Kim - They find themselves the perfect location to set their horror film.
Lauren - Unfortunately shadows are lurking, and they sense danger after coming across numerous dead animals.
Kim - As the girls head home, a number of shadows appear and the atmosphere suddenly changes.
Lauren - The film follows the girls as they try to escape the shadows and slowly lose everything around them.
Kim - We chose to use typical horror conventions for this film as the target audience can familiarise, and from research we found it is what people enjoy the most.
Lauren - We decided on a film rating of 15 as some scenes may not be suitable for a younger audience.


And lastly, here is the video of our 60 Second Pitch for Project : Shadow.



chamberlain head 60 sec by kbamediastudies