Evaluation

The link to my evaluation website can be found here https://jackgrimshaw01.wixsite.com/mysite

Final Magazine

This is the second draft of my magazine article. I have added a sidebar with other reviews on it as I presented my poster to a small focus group and the main issue that arose was that the poster was a bit empty. I used screenshots from films that other students of the media class have previously created or are in the process of creating. I have been told that the writing itself is fine and requires no editing, so I think my magazine is now in the last stages of production and I will only have very few changes to make if any after showing it to another focus group.

Final Product

This is the third draft of my film, and hopefully the last. I have presented my previous drafts to multiple small focus groups, my course teacher, and individuals such as my friends. With this third draft, I plan to upload it to social media and show it to much larger audiences, still with the same survey as before attached. This will help me see what changes I will need to make before the end of this week, my last chance to edit before half term. Fortunately, I believe this draft is now enough to pass as my final production and I am happy with the end product.

Final Poster

Magazine Article First Draft

This is the first draft of my film's online magazine review. I have already written a blog post on why I chose to use 'Dog and Wolf' as my review site, and I think the text I have written seems professional and suits the review well. I used Photoshop to create the look of my article and will send it around my class and using social media attached with a survey in order to see what needs improving and what is good about it.

The Intruder second draft

This is the second draft of my film, complete with the changes I made after sending the film and the survey out to members of my class. My next step will be to upload the video to websites such as Facebook and Twitter, where I can reach a broader audience and get more reviews and answers to my survey. I feel that this draft is as close as it can be to the final product however, and that the surveys will give me very little to help, but they will still be useful for audience feedback.

Film Survey Responses

These are the responses I got from my classmates in relation to my film. Whilst I didn't get as many responses as I had hoped for, they still gave me a good range of answers and have showed me what I need to change or fix in my film. My text step will be to fix the kettle scene and the speech I missed a 2:47 in my film, which I hadn't noticed until I sent the surveys out and got the responses.

Title Scene 'The Intruder'

This is the scene I have used to show the title of my film. I only used very minimal editing on it, using the animations that Final Cut provides, as I thought it fit in with the film very well. Being the opening shot, I feel that this scene sets up the narrative well, clearly showing that a person is watching the films protagonist, and the camera angle used makes Abigail look vulnerable as she is unaware that she is being watched by the unknown figure, meaning the audience instantly take Abigail's side. The animation of the text across the screen had to be slowed down quite significantly as it kept overtaking the Niamh walking, which would have ruined the effect of it.

Magazine Layout

I decided to use the website "Dog and Wolf" to base my own magazine article from. This is because they call themselves an "independent film review magazine for the latest in world cinema and the best of film festival". This is the ideal kind of magazine for me as my film is an independent short film.  I don't know if I will be able to recreate the design perfectly, but I can definitely make a basic layout that resembles it.

Magazine Review Writing

As I can't create the look of the magazine review at home without the appropriate software, I will just do the writing for it so it will be ready when I need it.

The Intruder: Short Film takes audiences by surprise with dark story line and unpredictable twists.

Review of "The Intruder": Jack Grimshaw's first short film a fast paced, enjoyable, fresh take on horror.

Low budget films are often limited in their production, with the results often not being up to standard, however Jack Grimshaw's first adventure into short films has not disappointed. The story-line of a young, vulnerable girl coming home to be stalked by a mysterious, threatening figure grips the audience from the very first scene. The film is great for the younger audiences who know not to misjudge the vulnerable looking characters.

Niamh Gallagher takes the character of Abigail and makes it her own, coming into the role with great comfort and creating an easy to relate to character for the audience who can feel like they know her very early on, despite her lack of dialogue throughout. The connection the audience can make to 'Abigail' makes them feel very sympathetic towards her, meaning the appearance of the intruder is a lot scarier for the audience. Matthew Levesley helps to create the mysterious character who, despite remaining unnamed throughout the film, strikes an uneasy feeling into the audience every time he appears on screen. The fact that we are seemingly unaware of why Levesley is in the home makes the idea of his intrusion so much more creepy, the audience are in the dark for much of the film.

Tension is built up very well through the use of camera angles and soundtracks, building up to the moment of realisation from Abigail that she is not alone. The use of music in the short film helps to truly optimise the viewing experience, with the climatic, unexpected ending matching the music perfectly. Despite the fact that we have no dialogue to connect with Abigail, the audience finds themselves desperately wishing for Abigail to come out unharmed. The ending leaves us wishing for more, with unanswered questions plaguing our minds, but Grimshaw gives us no peace of mind, leaving the enigma of the short film completely open to interpretation. For a first attempt at a solo first short film, Grimshaw's enigmatic and open minded thriller is not short of the mark.

4*

Short Film First Draft

I have completed the editing of my first draft, with the soundtrack and special effects included and uploaded it to YouTube as it would not upload to Vimeo. I will show it to all of my classmates and also share it on social media, with a survey to accompany it. This will allow me to make any changes I may need to my film, although they may have to be relatively minor due to the amount of time I have left before the deadline, and the fact that I no longer have the camera I used to shoot my scenes. Re-shooting and adding new scenes may be out of the question, but I can edit existing clips and add new effects in to make it better.




The film can be seen above, and the survey for the film can be found below Create your own user feedback survey

Sound Effects

So far I have edited in a few sound effects as foleyed sound. I used a mobile phone notification and a slamming door to create a more realistic feel to my film, whilst it would have been fine before, it now has more realistic sound effects that help top show the viewer what is going on in the scenes. the mobile phone notification was added in just to create a better understanding of why the phone is actually picked up, and the door slam was essential to the film as the scene would have made no sense without it. I later plan to add more foleyed sounds, as I feel some of my scenes seem a bit empty due to the lack of sound.

Update

Having completed a first draft of my poster, the next step will be to post a survey using Survey Monkey, and begin researching how to create a magazine review. I have previously done very brief research of film magazines, but after speaking with fellow students I realise that I will need to do more research before beginning my review. I am going to create the magazine in the form of an online magazine, writing an article in the template of something such as this: 

This kind of poster is ideal for what I want, and I will most likely use a template to recreate a similar type of look. I will use the big block writing at the top, with the star review also at the top. I will include a short plot summary and then a larger review, very much like the picture above. I will use photos of the film, both from the final product and the shooting process to give a better insight to how the process was completed. 

Survey Results First Poster Draft

Although I didn't get as many responses as I had wished for, I have enough to help me to understand what I need to change in the poster. The biggest problem to address seems to be the text at the problem, something I personally felt needed improvement anyway. I was concerned that the dimensions of the poster would be problematic as they are not what you would typically expect but it seems that they are fine. Another of my concerns was the title being located in the bottom corner of the poster, but I think the effects I have added have clearly made it prominent enough as the vast majority of the feedback was positive. I will begin to retouch the things I think need fixing back in lessons.

Poster Draft and Survey

The survey I created for my posters first draft is located here. I am going to use this survey to see how I can improve my poster, or if it is good enough as it is. I will upload the survey to social media and send it to my classmates, and gather the results a few days afterwards. This should provide me with good enough feedback to help fix my poster.

Poster Draft 1

This is the first draft of my film poster. It is not the conventional shape of a film poster, it is more of a square which means it does not fit to typical size conventions, but there is little I can do to fix this. I used other students blogs and other film posters for inspiration on how to create a poster that looks conventional and good. Unlike many film posters, my title is in the bottom corner of the poster, which is again, unconventional as film titles can often be found in the centre of a poster. In order to keep the attention on the title, I have made it the largest piece of text with a white glow around it, drawing focus to it as it stands out more than any other piece of text. The cast members names can be found at the top of the poster, I used this as it is where the majority of films place it on their posters and it was the most convenient place for me to place it. Because I had to crop the outside of the original photo, the shape of the end product is more square, but it could work anyway as more of a billboard poster instead of a smaller A4 sized poster.

Music

In my film I needed two different soundtracks, one I felt was suitable to the early scenes that was creepy enough to build up tension and suspense, and one for the later scenes where the protagonist was being chased. I searched for royalty free music on multiple websites, and eventually found the ideal tracks on two different websites. The website 'Incompetech' was where I found the chase scene music, and 'Purple Planet' is the site I used to find the music that I felt was perfect for the initial, more tense scenes of my film. I have edited the volume levels of the music to suit the scenes, and the loudest part is when the chase reaches its climax.

Filming Update

At this time, I have completed the majority of my filming and have most of my scenes finished. i have experienced some problems along the way with ill actors, the camera being unusable due to the wrong lens, and just a busy schedule. However after overcoming these problems, I have managed to get the majority of my scenes filmed and am well on the way to being ready to edit them. I have had to re shoot many scenes as we filmed over the course of a few days, and on the later days the locations we had originally used were no longer available. This meant I had to make changes to my script and story line, but it ultimately was no real issue.

On Screen Text Message Effect

I want to use the on screen text message effect as pictured above in my film. I don't plan to use it very much in my film but still feel it would add a good effect in just a few scenes. After reviewing a few websites that offer bits of software that make this possible on Final Cut, I have come to the conclusion that any external pieces of software will be too expensive and I will just use one of the text effects that Final Cut already offers.

First Script

FADE IN:

EXT. ABIGAIL'S HOUSE, NIGHT - ABIGAIL ABIGAIL arrives home looking exhausted, she makes her way into her house, hangs her keys up and walks in. 

INT. ABIGAIL'S HOUSE - ABIGAIL throws her coat onto the sofa, looks around the house wondering if anybody is home. 

ABIGAIL:

(Shouting) Hello? Anyone home?

ABIGAIL gets no reply so just assumes nobody is and precedes to go to the kitchen. She makes herself a drink and something to eat before getting comfortable in front of the television.

FADE OUT

FADE IN

ABIGAIL is still watching the television but it is clear there has been some time since the last time she was seen. She is now in different clothes. She hears a loud noise come from upstairs and inspects it.

ABIGAIL:

(Shouting) Hello?

ABIGAIL walks upstairs and looks around the house, but finds nothing out of the ordinary. She then hears a slam from downstairs. Looking scared, she walks downstairs to find the kitchen cupboard doors open. She panics a bit and tries to ring her family and then friends but gets no answer from anyone. She walks into the kitchen and keeps texting her friends but her phone isn't working. The light in the room in the background turns off. Strange things continue to happen around the house and ABIGAIL continues to attempt to phone her friends and family. She receives a text from somebody. 

PERSON ON PHONE:
(texting) What's your favourite scary movie?

ABIGAIL reads her phone

ABIGAIL:
(texting) Shut up you mug

PERSON ON PHONE:
(texting) :( :( :(

ABIGAIL shakes her head and puts her phone down and goes back to watching tv. More time passes 

Update

When I tried to film last night, we found that the lens attached was far too long and meant any inside scene I attempted to film was too zoomed in and became distorted. This meant my filming has again been set back, but once my teacher has replaced the lens for me with one that she has, I can pick up where I left off. Until I start to film again, I will focus the rest of my time on researching and starting my ancillary tasks as I still need to get them done.

Filming

As I stated in a previous post, I was planning to film over the weekend. However, due to illness I could not use my location that I wanted to film and have had to delay filming again. I now plan to film tomorrow night and this time, should be entirely capable of filming in my location. Because I was not filming, I spent the weekend familiarising myself with the camera I am using as it is one I haven't used before and had no idea of how it worked. I have borrowed this Canon EOS 1300D camera from a teacher as it is far better than any of the other cameras available to us as students. However, having never used such a camera and my experience only limited to simple video cameras, I had to spend some time reading the information booklet, testing things out on the camera and watching YouTube videos.

The video I watched was very useful as it covered all of the things I need to know about this camera and I now feel far more confident about using it to film.

Deadline Update

The deadline for my three practical tasks is the 20th of February, a date that gives me just over a month to complete the three tasks.  Once my mocks are out of the way, I will make the three projects my priority and focus many of my free periods and some free time on them until I finish them. This deadline will be reachable.

Lighting

My film is going to rely on lots of my own artificial lighting to create different atmospheres in different scenes. I used another student's blog to get these photos, which are a demonstration of three point lighting.

The lights are broken down into three: the key light, the fill light, and the back light.

The key light is the one to the left, and is typically the main light used in filming. This light is influential on the scene and helps to create shadows on the other side of the object being lit. I will use shadows heavily throughout my short film, so this form of lighting is one that I intend to use.

The fill light is the one depicted centrally, and is used to remove unwanted shadows created by the main light. It is the lighter one of the two, and I will only use this form of lighting when I have unwanted shadows present in my scenes, which may be a common problem due to the nature of the film I am creating, which will rely heavily on manipulated lighting.

The third and final light is the photo on the right, and is one I don't intend to use over the course of filming. The back light is primarily used to define characters from their surroundings rather than to provide a direct light, which is something I doubt I will need to do. However, upon experimenting with the lighting in my scenes, this light could prove to be useful and I may end up using it.

Before filming I will research all 3 lighting techniques and eventually decide on which of the three to use. I will definitely use the main, key light but I am currently unsure on whether or not I will use the remaining two.

Update on Filming

I had previously planned to film my piece of work on a date that I and my actress had set in the Christmas holiday. However, the night before filming I fell ill, and was unable to film. I currently cannot film because now my actress is ill and I am in the middle of my mock exams, meaning I now plan to film next weekend, if my actress is back to full health. This has been an unfortunate set back but it has been out of my hands.