Film Feedback

Using these feedback videos, we have learnt that our main actor did a fantastic job and played the role well with the correct fit to the narrative. We also learnt we carried out the mise-en scene well and we appealed to our targeted audience.

The Devils Child

Evaluation Task 7 - What have i learnt from Prelim to main Task

When we began the year, we made a prelim with a basic script as well as using many different camera angles in each scene. For the prelim, we made a basic storyboard to follow guidelines of what to say and what angle to film from for each scene. For our film, we made a detailed storyboard instructing the protagonist what to do, how to act, what to say and the camera angle used in that scene. We developed our storyboard making skills in this process leading up to the filming of the opening sequence which enabled us to make a far more detailed storyboard that the one from the prelim. Furthermore, we were also given the fully completed storyboard for our prelim where as we made our film prelim from scratch with no guidelines given.

In the lead up to the prelim, we had no rehearsals and we were just given a prelim to film and act in, all on the day. We had no time to rehearse with our actors and no time to practice camera shots. For our film, we designated a whole day to rehearsals and practice for the film in which we went through the script and sequence with the actors, practised all the lighting and camera shots as well as constructing all the camera equipment. We took a lot more time and care into rehearsals as we wanted everything to run smoothly and efficiently on filming day. Also, we held auditions at Tommy's house for casting the main protagonists in our film. We did this as we wanted the best possible actor in our film so the main plot was comprehended the way we planned it.

When we were handed our prelim, we were given a basic script that we could not change which had no personal input from us. For our film, we had a script writing day where we designated all of our Sunday to planning the film. This consists of what will be said, stage directions, lighting instructions and camera angle. Our film has minimal words in it so we took this time and made it more focused towards the camera shots, lighting and sound. We believe the attention we showed towards our script was significantly more than our prelim as it had our own personal ideas towards it and we didn't just copy off a sheet, we made it all using our planning and research.

When shooting our prelim, we filmed it using the clothes we had on as the storyboard did not instruct a specific clothing to be worn. Also, the basic storyboard did not tell us what sort of lighting, props, actors, make up to include in our filming. The lack of detail made it extremely difficult for us to create any sort of narrative in our prelim. For our film, we made sure we planned all the mise-en scene in our storyboard so when we came to film it, we knew what lighting we were using for each scene, we knew what costumes we were wearing, we knew what make up we needed for people or landscape, we knew if we needed any props and where they would be placed. Four our film, we intensely planned every action as we wanted the narrative to come across as simply as it seems.

For our prelim, we were given camera shots to include for each scene on the day so we stuck to the sheet and filmed it the way we were told. As previously said, for our film we had a rehearsal day where we practised a run through of each scene several times in order to ensure we knew what was happening on shoot day so everything was efficient. This run through enabled us to have a picture in our mind going into shoot day of what we wanted to happen, at what specific angle at any point in the opening sequence. We believe the shooting of our film in comparison to the prelim was a lot higher quality as a lot more planning and research went into the creation of the narrative as well as using specific camera angles to create an impression about the characters and what will happen next. For example, in our prelim we only used wide shot, over the shoulder and close up but for our film, we used tracking shot, extreme close ups, high angle, low angle, panning as well as all the shots from the prelim. We used all these other shots in our film as we advanced our skills and learnt what angle to place the camera at in the time in between filming the prelim and the film.

When editing our prelim, we were given no instructions on what to include in terms of non diegetic music, sound effects and titles. The editing for our prelim took very minimal time as we had a basic understanding of how the software worked so because of this we just combined all the scenes in the correct order with the correct camera angle, with nothing done with titles, music or effects. For our film, we took a long time precisely editing each frame of each scene in order for it to be perfect and fit the narrative we planned. This involved combining all the scenes in the correct order with the correct camera shots then making sure the scene changes were smooth and barely noticeable. Following this, we changed the lighting by adding a filter as well as slowly removing all the footage we did not need. Once this was completed, we began looking at sound effects, music and titles in which we researched and gathered several different opinions. Once we had decided on the non diegetic background music, relevant sound effects and font for the titles, we integrated them into our film so they became natural like they were always meant to be there. We then asked people to watch our finished film and give constructive criticism. From these opinions, we mended several aspects of our film including removing an entire scene. We believe the editing was done in far more detail for our film in comparison to our prelim as we learnt a lot more skills in the time gap as well as wanting people to understand the narrative a lot more for the film. For example, in our prelim we did not change the sound in any way however for our film, we altered the sound by adding music, changing the sound of particular areas of importance and adding sound effects.

Evaluation Task 6 - How have you used digital technologies in the development of your film?

Evaluation Task 5 - Have you attracted/addressed your target audience?

This poster would appeal to my secondary target audience more than my primary target audience. This is because people in the 24-35 age bracket would be more interested in the producers and the directors of the film because they take an interest in the roles of the crew and that is why we displayed this information in the poster, whereas people in the 15-24 age bracket would prefer a more simple poster and would be more interested in the actual story line rather than the people who made the film, that is why the primary audience poster will be a lot plainer with less words, more pictures and brighter colours. This secondary audience poster has a phrase below the title to give it more thrill and emphasise the fact that it's a scary thriller film and also because people associate a film with a phrase below as serious and cultured. The picture does this too, and gives the poster more of a scary look and may encourage people to see the film so they continue their suspense from the scary look of the poster. We also included quotes from newspapers in the poster, as this would encourage people to come and see it if others said it was a good film. Popular newspaper ratings encourage people to want to see if the film lives up to the popular ratings. 

This poster would appeal to my primary audience of ages 15-24 rather than the secondary audience of 24-35. This is because a younger audience are more interested in the image, narrative and the film name rather than newspaper ratings and the name of the crew. We used the results from this research to make our primary audience poster contain a lot less words, a bigger image and a cool colour contrast. We included the same picture but in bigger size and with a different effect so the primary audience still know who the main protagonist is (therefore they are following the story line) as well as maintaining the scary nature to the film. We moved the title and subtitle but remained with the same font so the focus was solely on the picture. We included the name of the main actor in this poster but did not include the name of the smaller characters and the cast and crew as we felt the primary audience are not interested in these names and this way we hype the pre sell element. 

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for my media product?

I think the suitable age for our film would be 15 years and above. I feel this is the suitable age bracket for our film because it contains dangerous threats of death using weapons that could be used to kill. The age of 15 is suitable because they have been educated about the awareness of these topics and have seen a lot of it in other films as well as on social media.

This age is suitable for the content displayed in our film because the youngest people allowed to watch have been exposed to this sort of graphic content before and i feel they would be able to handle it mentally as it wouldn't be a completely whole new experience for them as they are used to seeing these sorts of things on social media and video games.

The age bracket for the film isn't higher (18+) because no actual death takes place and only the threat of death occurs. Throughout our 2 minute clip, only threat makes it eligible for a 15 however if we were to show the gruesome scenes of death then we would be coerced to raise the minimum age that would be required to watch the film. Furthermore, it is 15 because it doesn't contain any sexual content or bad language that would be of a bad influence to a 15 year old.

Our film is not suitable for 12-14 bracket because aspects of the sequence contain the threat of moderate violence with the use of blood to imply that death will take place.

Evaluation Task 3 - Who would distribute my Thriller?

Distribution is the way in which a film is made available to the audience. This includes marketing, in order to make the audience aware that the film exists. The distribution platforms for a film include cinema, selling film rights to television networks, DVD sales, Sky video on demand, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google play, Xbox live, Itunes, Spotify and YouTube. Cinema is where films make most of their money however 9/10 films do not make it into the cinema so most have to find an audience other ways. For a low budget filmmaker, it is essential to go to film festivals as this is a way to find a distributor to buy your film. Film festivals take place in London, Sheffield, Brighton, New York, Berlin etc... Film festivals act as a meeting point  for people to have an opportunity to invest in films they like and think will make money.

Once film is sold to a distribution company, they will then market the film, advertise the film, create a social media campaign, get your film a certificate to be rated (age) and handle all the press interviews. This is time consuming and things they do not want to do. The film will then be pitched to independent cinema chains like Curzon. It is important to strike the right deal with a distribution company in order to maximise the chance of profit. Distribution companies will take money off for digital platform fees, advertising and cinema rentals, therefore getting the best deal is important and low budget film makers need to decide whether to sell all their rights to the distributor and make a small profit or cut a deal with them.

A big Hollywood company would make my film because it is a good thriller/horror idea based upon a genre that is popular and has a high consumer base. A film that achieved success that is in the same genre is Inception.

It is highly unlikely that an American conglomerate would distribute our film because it was made with a very small budget therefore all the aspects of the film wouldn't be professional enough for people to pay a lot of money to go and watch. The actors in our film are unknown therefore it wont attract anyone to come and watch it, even before they have been told about the idea. For example, The revenant was successful because it had a pre sell element of the star actor being Leo Di Caprio who is known worldwide and would attract people to go and see the film before they had even heard about the idea. Furthermore, we are first time film makers and have no experience in this industry therefore it is unlikely our film will be of high enough quality for them to be interested in distributing it. Moreover, the unprofessional location of it being in an actual house and not in a studio makes it unlikely that it will be distributed. Also the camera and lighting equipment is semi professional as well as the costume not being specifically made for the film so these factors all lead to the film not being eligible to make enough money to be worthy of success.

If we posted our film on social media and it went viral and got picked up by a UK distribution company, we would invest money in promoting it nationally as well as adding a pre sell element to attract people to the idea. A similar film where this happened is made by Vertigo and is called this is evil. This film is similar to ours because it is based around fear and not actual violence and this was promoted and distributed because of this main concept which is similar to ours.

A problem with the UK film distributors is that they require additional support to distribute their films and if they share it in the UK, the do not have the  financial muscle or power to venture much further to expand and make a lot of money where significant profit can be made. This means that they need to seek additional help to be able to distribute their film around Europe and the rest of the world. An extra investment makes it difficult for the original producers to make money off of it because the investors expect a their money back and a lot of the profit!

Another film created by Vertigo is Street Dance. This is a small budget film of around 3.5 million and was very successful in the UK. The main reason it was successful was because of the pre sold element of the famous people in the cast e.g. George Sampson and Diversity. These famous people made people want to go and see the film before they had even heard about the plot and this is what made it very successful despite the average ratings. It made £2,493,948 on the first weekend in May 2010 and made a total of 17 million in the UK by September 2010.It was shown in 412 screens in total. The success of this film was unexpected as it was made by a small UK film distributor and ended up being shown in 36 countries worldwide.

Evaluation Task 2 - How have i represented Social Groups in my thriller?

Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko is similar to our main character as we wanted to focus on someone that is vulnerable and innocent but at the same time complex character. In Donnie darko, the main character is represented as being mentally unstable as he seems to hallucinate but actually he is just seeing glimpses of the future. in our film, we wanted the audience to believe that our character was also unstable as he felt there were people inside his house but nobody else could see them. In our opening sequence through the shot in the kitchen, we can clearly see that the clown is there yet other people in the house cant. This is much like Donnie darko where he talks to a giant rabbit that converses with him but nobody else can see it therefore they think he is insane. 

  

In our opening sequence, the victim was followed using a tracking shot as well as an eye line match to show fear of the victim. Furthermore, the non diegetic sinister sound throughout builds tension. in our thriller, we have subverted gender stereotypes by having a male victim in the opening sequence rather than a woman. Usually this sort of film typically has a first girl victim who dies at the beginning that is a female. The close up shot of the victim shows his facial expressions and has connotations of fear. The white bed sheets symbolise the innocence of the male victim as well as the diegetic sound sound when he wakes up, to show that he was relaxed and calm before misery was brought upon him. His innocence is enhanced when we see him grabbing the hammer immediately for protection, showing his lack of strength and confidence in his own ability, unlike a stereotypical male in a thriller. Furthermore, his stereotypical behaviour of being too scared to look into other rooms when going downstairs to investigate is shown through the tracking and over the shoulder shots demonstrating his naivety. Overall, we used age stereotypical in our opening sequence however by using a young male instead of a young female, we subverted generic expectations as we didn't feature a first girl but rather a first boy to die in our film.

In our opening sequence, we use binary opposition effectively by clearly highlighting who the bad and good people are as soon as we begin. We start by targeting a lonely and isolated boy in a bedroom and make him vulnerable instantly by hearing a frightening noise that forces him to go and investigate. In this case, the boy is the victim and the person causing all the fear is the antagonist. Furthermore, the use of strengths and weaknesses is used by targeting the weaknesses of the victim and making it obvious that he is vulnerable at each stage of the sequence. Although it seems like the victim is calm and combative, the subtle gestures hint that he is weak e.g. his facial expression when he wakes up. The emotions of the victim are in the hands of the antagonist as throughout the sequence, he has the ability to change his emotions and this has allowed him (antagonist) to have complete power. The contrast is also evident because of the mental state of the protagonists. The antagonist is clearly a psychopath if he breaks in to someones house in the middle of the night with the attention to frighten and also with the objective of killing them. The victim is at a disadvantage because he isn't aware of the capabilities that the antagonist will go to in order to achieve his goal.


We chose to represent our male character as an innocent and naive young man alone in the house and vulnerable. In this respect we wanted to make the film like the Enfield Haunting and The Amityville Horror. Both these films focus on young people being haunted as it makes the representation appear more realistic.  The focus on the close-up of the male character enabled us to make him appear vulnerable and the over the shoulder tracking shots enabled the audience to feel his tension and how scared he was home alone. This was a choice we made early on as we felt this would best add to the tension of the sequence and make our character a male version of Drew Barrymore in Scream.