Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e of film openings)

In general, our horror film doesn’t really apply many of the main conventions found inside a horror film. We have chosen to go for more of a political horror rather than such horror forms as a thriller or action. Because of this it means that we have chosen not to include conventions such as the fake scare, the ignorance towards a threat or the stranded victim convention. However in order to create a real horror atmosphere and be able to let the audience identify the genre that this film will fall into we decided it would beneficial for us to include a convention that is most commonly found in Slasher Horror’s, this is a convention that includes a character being killed in the opening minutes of the film.

Our horror was thought up based of personal idea’s and thoughts that group shared, our original idea has been altered an awful lot in order to gain the best effect of the audience. Our actual location and the way we filmed out shots was inspired from a music video that we felt helped to build tension and focus a lot on one character, Lupe Fiasco – Show goes on. The main shot that we decided we thought could work well for our production that we spotted during this music video was the shot I have included in the video below, we felt if we could track the movement of our main character towards the stage it would help the audience focus on this character, become gripped to the character and then have him killed and taken away from them, something they wouldn’t expect. I have also included our version of this shot to show the effect we were going for.

Below I have constructed a 10 minute video that includes myself analysing the 14 key shots that we picked out as a group, I talk about the reasons why we decided to pick this shots. I also discuss the way we constructed the shots and to how we feel this has benefited our production and in what way we feel it has had an overall effect on the final product.

Evaluation 2

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

In our production, we decided to go for someone that is far from the biggest person we know, we decided to choose someone who was of a smaller build for a number of reasons. Firstly because we feel that using a small build of character will lure the audience into seeing this character as less of a threat, this is good because when the actual murder happens they will be in more of a shock and confused about how this has happened. We feel this will help to engage the audience and make them feel as if there’s more to this character than meets the eye. We also wanted them to feel that even despite the size of the illuminati, they are far superior to use and have the power over the normal person, this is important to setting the scene and the plot of the story.
In terms of how our product represents certain social groups, there is one main point to discuss. This is again that about the character, we decided to go for on outfit that was inspired mainly by the hit film, V for Vendetta. The mask is commonly associated with the illuminati and secret services/freemasonry, worldwide. We felt that by including this mask, that the audience could easily relate to this type of story plot, the illuminati and V for Vendetta, which automatically will strike fear into the audience.
The image at the top of the screen shows just how we were inspired by V for Vendetta, we wanted to achieve a look that would incorporate not only the mask of ‘V’ but the secrecy of him, we used Monks robes rather than the conventional full black, to achieve this look. I also believe that the picture of our character (right) shows him to look powerful and almighty, this is shown by the way his hands are risen and his body posture and positioning. The fact that we chose to keep our character covered and keep the level of secrecy will make the audience expect the worst of him and try and figure him out as character.
However our character does have differences to the social group he most represents, the key fact that our character doesn’t use any sort of conventional weapons and uses more of an improvisational weapon in order to create a more memorable and authentic effect on the audience is something that our production team took a great level of care and went into great detail in selecting. We also feel they share great differences in there build, ‘V’ is shown to be a great, tall, well-built character who could dominate any victim with his bare hands, whereas our character is smaller and looks to be less of a threat, which was the deception we wanted to lure our audience into.

Evaluation 3

What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

Having spent a good amount of time surfing the internet, comparing a wide range of potential institution's that we feel would be interested in distributing our small media production we have come to a conclusion. We decided that a company such as Maxim Media would be very interested in our type of production as they pride themselves on 'distributing a large range of independent horror and shock films to a potentially worldwide audience'.

The fact that they specialize in distributing only independent films played a key role for us in making our decision to select Maxim Media as a preffered institution to distribute our film. What this means is instead of distributing large, big budget blockbusters such as The Hills Have Eyes or Saw for example, they will specialize on low budget films that our without any real backing in the media aspects, advertisement or even financial backing. This is perfect for us as our media production was an extremely minimal budget piece of media that was without any backing of any sort from anyone! This means that Maxim Media are the type of company we would approach if we wished to find distribution from a company, we would choose them for that reason alone.

However that isn't the only reason we may have for selecting Maxim Media, the fact that they also specialize in a wide range of horror AND SHOCK films is another key point that should not be ignored. In terms of horror, our film doesn't really include a wide range of blood, guts and gore, however, it is more of an investigative shock/horror, in the fact it keeps the audience guessing and trying to figure out what might happen next. Because of this I believe that a institution that specializes in a wide range of horror movies will be better suited to a production such as ours because we have tried to become innovative with our ideas and our production, we have tried to create something that is new and fresh. It's for this reason why we believe Maxim Media would once more be suited to our production of, Breaking The Fourth Wall.

Evaluation 4

Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

 (Left) Dean Houghton is 17 years old and is a student at Kettering Buccleuch Academy; he is a sixth form student who lives in the Northamptonshire area of the UK. He has a strong passion for media, film making and film consuming. He spends his spare time creating short films and researching into a future in the media/film making business. His love and knowledge of films is also shown in his place of work, the local Odeon cinema screening company. Dean is your average, young, outgoing and athletic teenage boy who enjoys nothing more than spending time with friends.

Dean, as mentioned enjoys spending time consuming media aswell as creating it. His favourite television show is The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is a horror-drama which includes a Zombie Apocalypse in the US. The show is much americanised and is aired by an American TV channel. He likes this show because he says “As a TV show I find it really gripping, I really enjoy the drama element of the show aswell as the horror of the show. I find that these two aspects work very well because I believe it’s like watching your average drama, but you’re constantly on edge as to what might happen next because you’re aware of the horror element it has to offer through the means of Zombies, blood, guts and gore. For me, it’s the perfect mix and it has me totally hooked!”

Dean went onto comment about his love of scary films aswell as TV shows, “ I’d have to say that horror is by a mile my favourite genre of films. I have a huge passion for all types of films, but horror films just have that extra edge, that buzz that other types of films just don’t bring. They have the ability to put you edge, aswell as grip you and get you thinking, for the full 2 hours. I just don’t think that other genres of films can compare to horror, they don’t get you fearing, sympathising, they don’t have you jumping out your skin at every twist and turn, and that’s why, for me they’re the best types of film.” He later explains, “In terms of my favourite film of a horror genre, I’d have to say v for Vendetta would probably have to be it. It has that extra twist to it that other horror’s don’t, I like how it challenges conventions rather than copies them. I love how it is a very smart film, it’s clear to everyone that the storyline has been thought out well and that’s why I love it.”

Dean enjoys all different types of music, but his favourite type is Acoustic. Dean has recently been to several different music gigs, including his favourite artist, Ed Sheeran, who performed at a HMV event in Nottingham earlier this year. Dean has been a keen admirer of Ed since even before his rise to fame in 2010. He is constantly listening to Ed on his iPod and is a keen follower of Ed on Twitter. However he does also enjoy listening to a wide range of music that include the likes of Gyptian, The Enemy and Green Day.

My reasoning for believing that our media product would be well suited to someone such as Dean is because he shares a strong love for horror products, he has told us his passion for this type of films. He commented on how his favourite type of film is V for Vendetta because it is a very intelligent film that has a very well thought out storyline, he believes that this type of film is very appealing to his type of audience. As we used V for Vendetta as an inspiration we feel that he is a perfect target audience for us to use. This is why we used him as a model for who we wished to target in our production. We also feel that this type of film is something that there is a strong market for and the type you could imagine seeing in a cinema, Dean’s love of cinema’s is shown in his job alone, and for this reason aswell as many others we believe that he fits the perfect bill for our target audience.

Evaluation 5

Thank you for your time, and thank you for watching guys.

Evaluation 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this production?Below I have produced a powerpoint presentation using Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation. This slideshare version ofthe powerpoint includes the different type of software, equipment and technologies that we as a group have used during our time creating this production. Evaluation Question 6

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Evaluation 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity edit task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?The slideshow below consists of a number of comparisons between shots that were taken during the creation of our groups preliminary task and shots that were taken during the main horror opening scene task. We have analysed a number of different shots, techniques and camera skills that were used for different shots and also gone into detail as to what we feel is the good and the bad points of each shots. We have picked out the poor shots from the continuity edit and shown how we have improved these types of shots in the main task.Evaluation Question 7

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Breaking The 4th Wall - The Première

The Breaking The 4th Wall team our proud to annouce that after many months of hard work, determination and more hard work, we have finally come to the end of our long grueling task of creating the opening scene to our teen horror movie. Myself, Jose, Jordan and Pav our all very happy to have finally completed what has been one of the most challanging tasks yet for us during our long educational career but feel what we have produced is something we can all be very proud off.

Today was the day in which the group came together for what will be the pneultamate time taking into account our evaluation. We came together today in order to burn our production onto a disc, aswell as our preliminary task which will be shown on a DVD menu for presentation purposes. We also today printed our disc with the Breaking the 4th Wall title. This art-work is something that we our also very proud off as we all believe it will add to the first impression the examiner will have when presented with our disc.

I have decided it would be beneficial for my blog to include the final production so have decided to upload the production onto Youtube, I have then gone onto include this video below -


I hope you enjoyed watching our production.

Final Editing

Breaking The 4th Wall production team would meet in the media suite for what would appear to be the final time we would edit together as a group. Having gone over what we felt could be improved and what we felt needed tweaking and also, what we felt should be kept the same, it was a simple matter of going in there, armed with our notes from the previous review of the previous edit and doing the task in hand. We sat ourselves down at the iMac, opened up Final Cut and set to work on our edit, Jordan, once more lead the way with confidence and ideas flowing from the rest of the production team.

The main task on our hands was inputting our score and then adjusting certain shots and clips to fit with the beat and flow of the score. This was a task that turned out to be quite difficult at times as it often meant cutting clips to suit amongst other things. However we feel after spending 1-2 hours trying to adjust this that we have come out with a product that is once again improved to what we had when went into the media suite. This on it's own is a huge bonus for us as a group as this was the main aspect of our production that was missing, the reason this was such a huge problem is because we opted to take out any dialogue and background noise form our recording, this means that without a score our production is without practically any noise and is left motionless and the atmosphere as good as ruined. 






To conclude on this short editing post, we feel that including this score has helped us to try an achieve a more authentic and professional outcome of a product. We also feel with this score being put into the picture that we have helped ourselves to try and create a more horror-type-genre opening that will create a better level of tension and also help to grip the audience with the change in shots and cuts according to the beat of the music. All in all we feel pleased that this score has been input because ultimately we believe it will help to push the production into the higher mark bands and be more realistic in comparison to the image we had in mind during the start of our production.

Final Changes

Today me and the rest of The Breaking The Fourth Wall production team sat ourselves around a computer in the media suite here at KBA and decided it would be beneficial to go back over the most recent effort at an edit for our production. Having watched over the production several times and mentally noting down different parts of the production and the edit that we all felt could be improved upon we then decided to create a task list of different shots, edits and effects that we still felt could be included in order to improve the overall effect of our production.

The main part of our production that we felt could be improved upon was the shot shown in the screenshot below, we believed that this could improved because of a number of reasons. Firstly we felt that it lacked the same type of visual quality that the rest of the production brang with itself. Secondly we felt that the lighting in the shot was very poor and it made it very difficult to withold the effect that we were targetting as a group from the moment we set the ball rolling back in September. Our third and final justification in deciding to take away this shot was that because we felt that a POV shot was not the type of shot we felt would create the most tension in our production, we felt the need to keep switching between shots that were close up on our character and long shots of the character making his way to the stage. For these reasons we decided to withdraw this shot from our production and instead of replacing it, we have decided to edit it differently to suit this withdrawal.

As a group we feel that we have benefitted hugely from being able to have the luxury of this meeting, this is because we have kept to sharp deadlines in order to give us this free time at the end of the year. This meeting has allowed us as a group to improve our production hugely in the fact that we now feel we can create a better level of tension and improve the suspense that our production is trying to create. We all feel that now we have done this we can look towards the final step towards completing this production and start burning the production onto the disc.

Production Meeting - Score

Today, myself and the fellow members of The Breaking The 4th Wall production team came together for what may become one of our very final meeting's as a production team. However it was business as always for the team, on the agenda today was the final tweakings towards our final, finished product. The soundtrack or score as it's known in the world of media is something that can make or break a production therefore, we personally believe it is of huge importance that we ensure that we make the right decision when it comes to selecting our score.

Earlier on during our production, in the pre-production stage we did a huge amount of research and planning into the production of our score and looked at a number of different producers that we could bring into the group and use as a hugely valuable asset. Aswell as this we also decided it would be beneficial to look into the idea of creating our own score, if this failed we had a third plan, we could have a number of different sources of royalty free audio tracks that we could input into our production in order to gain the desired effect.

In terms of producers, a few big names we looked at bringing in were the likes of  Charlie Spring, Zhirkov Liedbitter and many others. However we decided that going with a more reliable asset such as Charlie would be something that we can really be sure of success with. This is what I had to say about Charlie in the late weeks of 2011 -

We believe that our trust in Charlie and the fact that he has proved time and again he is capable is something that is hugely important in the success of our production. It is for all these reasons that we feel Charlie is the correct choice for the job. We have a few different remixes of original scores and also some of Charlie's actual creation to choice from, he created these for us earlier on this year from the requests we gave him, he went by a specification laid out from us all here at Breaking The 4th Wall Productions.

Beta Editing #2 - Production Team Review

3 days on from completing the second full edit of our production, Breaking The 4th Wall, myself and the rest of the production team decided we would go over the edit. Having time to take in and re-watch the edit we had created we were now better prepared than ever to discuss and review the pro's and con's of this edit in comparison to what our image of a final product was at the beginning of the production. We took ourselves the usual boardroom in order to sit down, around a table, paper and pen in hand and let the discussion begin. We all contributed and came up with a number ideas that we feel can be taken into consideration during the THIRD edit of Breaking The 4th Wall, below are some of the idea's we discussed - 

The first point that we discussed that we felt could be changed was that off the opening JFK footage, we felt that we could shorten this down in order to try and input more of our own recorded footage into the production. We felt that including as much footage as we did wasn't really needed at times and really didn't help to build the tension in the intended way. However we felt including this JFK scene was very important as is hugely allows us to set the scene and the story of what the actual production is about. 


Another key point that kept popping up during this reviewing session was that off the POV shot that was included in the previous edit linked at the bottom of the post was that we felt that the shot was very blurry and didn't really help to keep up with the high quality of the rest of the production. The reason for the poor quality was that the lighting within the shot was very poor, this mixed with the factor of the quick movement added to the poor quality of the shot, this is something that couldn't be noticed at the time of filming, however identifying this now will help us improve the overall quality of the production.

To wrap things up for this post, the group feel that coming together in this manner for a second time was once again beneficial for everyone within the production team and will help us all to improve the production and target a higher mark band for the entire production.This allows us to be confident going forward that we are doing all the correct things to bring success to the group and all achieve the high grades we desire and quite simply deserve after the hard work and effort we have put into every single stage of this production. We all feel the this meeting has benefited us and given us a rock solid plan of what to do in order to improve future edits. We will now move onto the next edit as I said in a few days time and we look forward to seeing how that goes. 

Beta Editing #2

In a usual system to the past, 3 days on from filming our production for the second time we decided to take ourselves onto the editing process once again. The Breaking the 4th Wall production team took ourselves to the media suite in search of an iMac to edit our footage upon. Having reviewed our previous edit last week and identified a number of different errors within the shots, edit and soundtrack that we had included we had a more clear understanding of what it was that would become something we would have to correct, knowing this we took extra care within editing our footage and made sure we did it too the best of our ability.

We stuck by the same guidelines that we set ourselves last week in terms of editing, these were - 

 We also had to try and make the soundtrack/score suit the actual footage itself, in order to have the score working to its optimum effect we needed to try and make the beats create tension by simulating it to the camera shots and speeding up the cuts as the beats increase to try and create more tension and race the heartbeat of the audience.

Earlier on during the course Jordan, who is the creative hub of the group took it upon himself to create some opening titles for the production, these can been seen in the video below. These titles took him a very long period of time to create and I believe that it is shown in the professionalism they give off to the audience. They have a very authentic and almost blockbuster feel to them and really get the audience's opinion off the overall authenticity of the production a lot higher and lets the audience feel more enticed into what they are about to be shown. These during the opening seconds of the production so the placement has been thought out to entice the audience correctly so that they have a higher opinion of it whilst watching the actual footage.

Here at Breaking the 4th Wall productions, we all feel that this edit reflects hugely the progress that has been made over the past weeks in terms of the improvement with the quality that we are producing. This is shown in the video above, this atmosphere that is being created in this edit is so much more advanced than in the previous edit, this we feel is simply down to the hard work we have put into this production, rather than leaving it after the first edit we have persisted with it until we are starting to see improvements. We will continue to edit until we feel the production has reached a stage at which it cannot move any more and is the best it can possibly be. When we reach this stage we feel we will be able to submit it confident that we will reach the highest possible mark bands for our efforts.

Beta Editing - Production Team Review

Today, 3 days on from completing our very first full edit of Breaking The 4th Wall we are ready to begin to fully review what we produced. After having time to digest the edit and form our own thoughts and opinions upon the piece of media we have come armed with notes on what we feel is good and what we feel needs to be improved next time we come to edit a full version of Breaking The 4th Wall in a few days time. We took ourselves down to the usual Breaking The 4th Wall board-room in search of a safe haven to discuss ideas without disruption. We sat ourselves down and let the ideas flow. Below is some of the key points that we discussed during the meeting -

First of all, we felt that this edit didn't really help to capture the actual concept of the storyline and we feel it would be a bit vague to an outsider as to what the production and this opening scene is actually about. Earlier on during the course we planned to input a speech from a political leader, Obama was the leader we planned to use. However having gone over the idea of our production and the storyline of exposing the secret services, illuminati/freemasonry type groups, we feel that having the JFK assassination clip within our productions opening scene would help to give identity to the actual production and help towards greater effect.

Secondly we have also decide to actually cut some clips down as we feel that a few of them are ruined by some of the movement in the clips, by this I am talking about the clips shown in the video below around 1:35-1:43. These shots we feel could be cut off before the movement is shown in order to have snappier and sharper cuts of higher quality footage to build tension to the actual murder shots shown just seconds later. We feel by doing this it will help lead to a better effect and create a more tense atmosphere around our production which is exactly the effect the production team are aiming towards achieving.

To conclude I believe that as a group we have come up with a number of great ideas which can take the group forward in the production of Breaking The 4th Wall. We all now have an even more in-depth and clear understanding of where we want to go next during editing and can all begin to form such an in-depth idea of what the final product will turn out like. This allows us to be confident going forward that we are doing all the correct things to bring success to the group and all achieve the high grades we desire and quite simply deserve after the hard work and effort we have put into every single stage of this production. We all feel the this meeting has benefited us and given us a rock solid plan of what to do in order to improve future edits. We will now move onto the next edit as I said in a few days time and we look forward to seeing how that goes. 

Beta Editing

Today the group has taken great strides in the correct direction, we have done this by completing our very first full edit of Breaking The 4th Wall. We took many hours out of our day to plan and fully edit this piece of media, we had to take into consideration a huge number of different things in order to try and target the highest mark bands within this production. It was most certainly not a matter of just logging onto the computer, pulling our footage in, and just cutting it to look suitable. We had to take into mind things such as continuity, this is because a lot of our footage was filmed on separate occasions so there is a big chance that somewhere amongst our production we may have included some continuity errors but it was our job to try and eliminate any sign of this. We also had to try and make the soundtrack/score suit the actual footage itself, in order to have the score working to its optimum effect we needed to try and make the beats create tension by simulating it to the camera shots and speeding up the cuts as the beats increase to try and create more tension and race the heartbeat of the audience.

Above is a picture of just some of the footage we have to choose from!

Taking all of that into account we began to edit, Jordan taking a lead role immediately put his creativity into practice and began inputting the shots he felt would benefit the groups marks when the piece was assessed. One shot that I picked out as a piece of creative genius from Jordan himself was one shown in the Video of this piece of media that we put together below - the shot I'm talking about is that at 0:03 seconds, that shot was originally taken from below of the lights at the theatre corridor by Jordan himself. With the image of what he wanted from this shot in mind Jordan instantly rotated the shot 180 degrees in order to get a very strange but effective shot that he has created. Another shot that Jordan himself filmed and picked out that no one else within the group selected was that of 0:24 seconds, the shot is very much out of focus but yet it works. Jordan selected it knowing that it works when all of us doubted, but we can all see for ourselves the distorted, blurred, unknowing effect it can have on the audience. However there are a number of shots that we all feel need to be improved, we feel during the second of the two minutes in the video below the shots become very poorly edited and put together and this is something we wish to take out during the second edit that we plan to hold during next week.



However, we still feel that this editing session has really set our creative minds alight and we all feel that from this we can take great knowledge, experience and ideas in order to ensure that the next edit we partake upon can become even better and then the next one, even better, until we reach a point in which we feel we are hitting the top marks for our production. We have all benefited greatly from the and all feel ready to try and improve on what we have created and take things forward in The Breaking The 4th Wall Production.

Post-Production Meeting

Today; The Breaking The 4th Wall Production Team met together once more in order to discuss future plans and ideas for the next step in the production. This is nothing unusual, our Production Team has taken great care and taken ever pro-caution required in order to ensure that everyone within the group has a clear understanding and idea about where the group and the production as a whole is heading in future. The plans of the production is something that is crucial to have everyone understand as this is very much a group effort. So it was for this reason that we decided it would be beneficial to everyone if we were to meet as a group.



So we took ourselves back down to the usual Breaking The 4th Wall Board-Room as it where and sat ourselves around a table with a number of different notes that each of us had put together. We began to share ideas and notes that we had brought along to the meeting with us and began to form an idea of what the production team wanted for the Production to include during the Editing phase. We formed a number of conclusions and make some huge decisions on the editing sector which will enable us to all have a clear idea of the future of Breaking The 4th Wall. With this decisions being made it will now let everyone within the group focus on getting the editing done and moving forward towards the finished product of Breaking The 4th Wall.



To conclude, each and everyone of the Production Team Members believe that this Post-Filming Meeting was extremely beneficial. We believe this for a number of reasons, some of which I have gone over above. Firstly, it now gives us (The Production Team) a clear image of where we want to be, and how to get there through this editing phase. From looking at the mark bands for editing we now know as a group exactly what is required of us if we are to reach the very best mark bands through this production. We have also been able to make an executive decision in allowing Jordan to take a lead role during the editing stage with Myself, Jose and Pav taking more of a back-role during editing but still offering considerable amounts of assistance towards Jordan.

Editing Footage #3

Now that the Breaking The 4th Wall Production Team had collected it's third 'batch' as it were off footage it is now time to put together a 3rd rough edit in order to see what footage we have at hand for the future edits. As per usual, I took all off the footage of the camera's SD card and transferred it firstly to my PC and then onto my Memory Stick in order to let me transport it freely around different computers throughout the school. We spent a good 45-60 minutes going over the footage before we then started to make a product out of it, we had to take into account a number of different things. For example we wanted to pick the shots that would give the production the most authentic and professional look and feel, we need to footage to flow and for the storyline of the production to be very much apparent in order to target the higher mark bands for our piece.

We spent a good hour of so putting the selected pieces of footage into Windows Movie Maker in order to create a basic feel of what we have produced for ourselves to try and progress from. We chose to use Windows Movie Maker as we feel it is the most time efficient and simple method of editing for this type of edit. We weren't looking to try and give the edit flashing lights, glimmering effects and Hollywood feel so that is why we decided against going for an editing software such as Final Cut Express this early on in the production stage. Once we had put together the footage we then reviewed what we had with a basic soundtrack being overplayed in accordance to the footage. This gave us an even greater feel for where we had to improve within the production and editing that could potentially be done to improve the feel for shots.

After partaking within this editing we feel as a production team we now have a more advanced depth of knowledge of our own production and can now really start to witness the production forming as a whole. We can see from reviewing this footage that we our where we need to be and that we have sufficient footage to move into the full editing stage of this production. Knowing this we will now discuss as a group where to go into the editing stage and assign certain job roles for the editing process. As a group, earlier on in this year we all agreed that it would be most beneficial if we were to give Jordan a leading role when it comes to editing. We think the group can benefit from taking great reliability upon Jordan's natural talent and expertise within the film industry and the editing stage of any production. The group as a whole feels more confident in going forward after this reviewing session today and we feel as a result of this the production will be of a greater standard due to the high level of understanding throughout the production team.

Filming Footage #3

Almost yet another week gone in our journey to completing our opening for a teen horror movie and we find ourselves ready to go and film more footage for the third time in as many weeks. The Lighthouse Theatre once more the destination for the production team. In similar fashion to that of the previous two trips, we set off for The Theatre early on during the day in order to make the long walk up towards our destination. After discovering such a level of success as we had the week before we decided we would bring with us the same equipments and props as to that we did previously. We decided this because we saw today as more of a second attempt at filming some of the shots we feel we didn't manage to really nail last week.

In order to try and prepare ourselves correctly for what we hoped to become the final filming session we would have to undertake as a production team we decided that we would put together a shot list of the shots we NEEDED to get. In order to do this we decided that whilst reviewing our footage from the previous training session that we would decide which shots we feel we could improve upon. We produced a shot list and took this resource with us in order to try and make the whole filming process run a lot more smoothly and work more time efficiently. During our time at the theatre this evening we also decided that we would improvise because we managed to get all the shots we had included upon the shot list with time to spare. I let Jordan and his creative instincts lose with the camera and he is very confident that he has offered the team as a whole a different range of shots that will help to improve the overall effect of the final production.

Leaving the theatre the basic feel amongst the group was very positive. We left with the feeling that we have been very successful in the footage that we have acquired in respect to the footage we went in search off.  But this feeling may not be felt once we have reviewed the footage, as we have in the past, we may notice one or two errors that have been made during filming or one or two things that we feel could simply be improved upon. The next step for the production team of Breaking The 4th Wall is to go and review our footage, we will then make our decision on whether we want to re-film any footage or we wish to continue through the production stages, and finally move into the editing stage. 

Editing Footage #2

After a long night of filming our new look footage, I felt it would be a good idea to again use Windows Movie Maker and order and trim the footage into a respectable condition. I spent a good few hours sifting through the hours of footage and picking out the correct footage for our production. I also thought now we have a clearer understanding and a close copy to our aim in the final production that it would be a good idea to input a soundtrack, this would only be to help set the atmosphere. Going back to Jordan and myself's Soundtrack research I found a track from a newly famous score producer called  'Vitaliy Zavadskyy' who is 'a aspiring Composer, with over 100k of views on the majority of his videos he is quite definitely a great talent in the uprising, he works across a wide range of genre with work as good as hollywood standards.' 

I stuck the raw clips along with the edited version I produced onto my memory stick and presented it to the group the following day. We again noticed a few errors with people in mirrors in the back of shots and a continuity error or two. We feel now it is just a matter of perfecting these shots rather than anything else. We now have the clearest idea yet as to what we need and how it needs to be pulled off. This edited version I put together will give Jordan, who is the Head of Editing and Special FX for the group, a clearer idea of which direction to head in which the editing.

A new additional shot we which to add

The Plan: We must now once again get back in contact with Lucy Hatfield in order to secure one final time slot in which we can go in a film our final bits of footage, from then on I will again create a basic edit to give Jordan and idea of what he has to work from. We will then work as a team to make decisions on what we wish Jordan to create in terms of After Effects and Special FX's. We look forward to doing our final bits of filming and are very confident moving forward. We feel we learnt a lot more in terms of what we are looking at our final product coming out like and feel content and pleased with our work so far.

For now, I leave you with this image.

Filming Footage #2

It's that time of week again, we have successfully gained access all area's at The Lighthouse Theatre once again and eager as ever we set off early to make the long walk through the snow and rainy conditions. We once more met Bruno on our walk to the theatre, once we arrived we were quick get set up and get going. Armed with our freshly printed, new and improved shot list we got to work.

Pav and Jose looking rather dashing. IN HD!

We began in logical fashion by going down the shot list, getting each shot one by one, when we filled up the SD Cards, we would make quick switch to our second card, and continue filming whilst I transferred the footage onto my laptop to not only free the memory space up for re-use, but to backup the footage onto my laptop and memory sticks. Whilst I was away transferring and backing up footage Jordan felt it would be beneficial to collect a number of different shots that we hadn't listed on the shot list. He filmed several different shots, some of which we're all really impressed with and feel have real potential to be added into the shot list for editing.

One of the new shots we have added to the production.

We feel we have really done our production justice today and feel we have collected footage that puts last weeks footage to shame. However we have noticed again a few errors we have made and have also come up with a few fresh ideas to add to the other ones that we failed to collect due to time constraints. Taking this into account we will get in contact with Lucy Hatfield (Theatre Manager) about one final time slot in which we can perfect our production, until then, I leave you with this image.

Editing Footage #1

Today I put the footage onto my memory stick and came armed into school with it. I shared the footage to my peers and we discussed a number of errors we had made during our time filming. We also discussed a number of things we could change or even add to give our production a more professional and realistic effect. We can take on board all of our different ideas and thoughts and produce a brand new shot list so that we can ensure we get everything we wish to get during our next time slot which is yet to be confirmed.

 In order to give them a real feel of the production as things stands I had edited the footage into order and cut them so they fitted the plot slightly better. I used Windows Movie Maker on my home computer because it allowed me to use the basic functions very quickly and efficiently and offered me a Upload to Youtube feature which I found very time and effort efficient for myself. Below is what we came away with after our first attempt of filming at The Lighthouse Theatre.

We feel we have learnt a lot from filming last night and have also found that errors can very easily be made during filming. An important lesson we have learnt is that things don't always look the same on screen as they do in person and that the slightest error such as leaving a door open in the shot below can ruin the atmosphere and effect you spend hours trying to perfect. Now we have done this we feel that we are extremely prepared to go and film again and get what we need, we feel 1 or 2 more sessions at the theatre will be a sufficient amount of time to perfect our production as best as we possibly can.

Filming Footage #1

Today we began collecting footage for our final product, the opening to a teen horror film. Myself, Jose, Jordan and Pav gathered our props and equipment yesterday in preparation for the big day. On the eve of filming I put all our equipment into one big bag that we carried up to the theatre. Amongst the equipment was our camera (Lumix G10K), the laptop to transfer and back up footage immediately and a tri-pod etc.

On our way up we had to arrange to meet Bruno who would be acting the main character in our production, we met Bruno and continued to make our way up to the theatre in a strangely dressed fashion as shown below -

Looking suspiciously like we had been let out on day release we arrived at the theatre raring to go and get our footage, as soon as we got backstage we staged our set and got to work filming. We found a number of difficulties that we would have to overcome such as the alarming number of mirrors that we'd failed to take into perspective during our location planning. However we found different spots throughout the room in which we could film in. We took with us a shot-list to use and guide us through our time at the theatre. 

Leaving the theatre we feel that our trip there was a success up until a point, we know now that there are certain thing's we could have done differently however we feel we have a good start to the creation of our production. We will now look to conduct a basic edit of the footage we collected to get a feel of what we need to improve. Once we have found where the improvements need to be made we will the enquire to the theatre about another time slot in which we can repeat tonight's performance to a higher standard.

Practising Focus Pulls

Today I spent a few hours with fellow student Jose going over the art of a focus pull. This is a skill I have learnt in the past from professional photographers, but I felt it would be of benefit to go over this skill and try and perfect my technique. My plan is to use a focus pull to switch the attention of the audience during a specific shot we plan to use in our production. I feel this is the best way to subtly pull the focus onto the other character, quite literally. Jose and I feel that now we both have a real feel for the camera we will actually be using to film the footage for Breaking the 4TH Wall that we are a lot more prepared than we would have been otherwise. I also practiced my rule of 3rd's once again by taking normal photos to help get used to the Manual Focus option the camera offers. I have put the footage we got into a video and upload to Youtube. I used Windows Movie Maker to produce this video and downloaded the Music off iTunes.
Below are a few clips of how we got on during our practice.





I feel now I have gone back over the art of focus pulling that I am very prepared to go and put it into practice during the time our group has at the theatre and feel that it will give the right effect off into our final product. We feel this is time well spent because now we have really got to grips and not only gone back over the technique but improved our technique which is always a bonus. Next up is filming, we will begin filming in 3 days time and will keep our blogs updated accordingly.

New Prop List

I have spent today gathering up a number of different props and objects that we wish to use during our production. Jose, Jordan and Pav aswell as myself have contributed different types of items that will help us achieve the effect and correct feel that we our all aiming for during this production. These items range from portable lights/torches to Good Luck cards to help set the scene. In order to present these props I have produced a slideshow with images of these props within it. (Shown Below).

I feel these props will not only help set the scene but give the production a more realistic and authentic feel, we have tried to target every little aspect of the set and make it all feel like a proper theatre setting. We feel the portable lighting will help us if we come across any dark spots within the set that we our struggling to film in due to lack of light. We feel producing this Prop List will help us be more prepared when we go to the theatre and feel we won't be caught without the right equipment.

New Shot List

Today I have decided to come up with a new shot list of my own that I will run by the group, the shot list is open for change and I will allow my fellow producers to over-rule any shots I propose. Below is what I came up with.

1. (Fade out from titles - Fade into filmed footage) mid-shot of seated main character in front of mirror and dressing room table - Side on.

2. Close up on Main characters face (short shot)

3. POV shot of suited man picking up hair product.

4. Mid shot of him applying into hair.

5. Panning shot of him standing up, walking over to mirror and looking into it.

6. POV of mirror, Main character looking into the mirror, prepping suit.

7. Close up of side face, get him turning into shot and walking past the camera.

8. Shot from behind of him opening the door, leaving the room and having the door shut behind him. (PIECE OF PAPER WITH BEWARE ON THE BACK OF DOOR AS IT SLAMS SHUT.)

9. Tracking shot of Main Character walking towards the stage

10. Close up on mask on the masked man as the voiceover states ‘behind the mask’

11. Return to Tracking shot.

12. Close up of robed mans hands

13. Panning shot of main character walking to mid stage

14. Crane shot of main character mid stage.

15. Close up of main characters face

16. Western rise shot from feet to mask of the robed man

17. Super Close Up of main characters eyes

18. Close up of mask

19. Audience View of main character slamming to the ground.

20. Crane Zoom out of dead body.

Ordering Outfits

Today the group has been hard at work making final decisions on what outfits we wish to order. We have come up with a number of different twists on the original plans for costumes but have opted to go with the original plans as shown below. We feel going with our original plans will mean that we know the effect we will get from our outfits and it will fit in to everything we have planned and researched up until this point.

Firstly is the main character, we wanted to go for someone who is a figure of importance and has a roguish, demonic look about them. For this reason we wish to use a suit. I went out and brought a suit as I will now have to act this role due to other commitments from the 1st choice actor.

(Above) Me styling the new suit that I will be using during our production.

Secondly, the secondary character. With this character we wanted to go against the normal conventions you see in a horror, but still keep it linked. For this reason, instead of your normal black robes (grim reaper style) we have opted to go for monks robes. We took inspiration for this look from Scary Movie as we will also be wearing a slightly different mask with the slightly different robes. This robe has been ordered just earlier and we will be expecting it to arrive during the next working day.

(Above) The robes our killer will be wearing.

A final piece of outfit that our secondary character will be wearing will be the mask. The mask was ordered in preparation many months back and has been kept safe by Jose (members of production team). The mask is a twist on Scary Movie's killer and we feel is a great bit of symbolization on the conspired Illuminati. We feel the mask nails the cliches that people associate with the Illuminati and feel it gives a mysterious look and presence to the character.

(Above) The Killers Identity.

Location Confirmed

Today I took it upon myself to ring up The Lighthouse Theatre and personally contact Lucy (the manager) directly. Having waited over 3 weeks for replies to several emails we felt it was a matter of urgency that we get in direct contact with her. I rang her and she told me that she would get back to our emails right away with a time and date that we could come in a film in.

However, we realized that the time and date she had set clashed with our school hours and would intervene with important lessons for all of the group. Knowing this I emailed her back and asked if we could have a time outside of school hours in which we could film in. She replied with the following

Now that we have this sorted we can move onto further preparation for filming, next up we will begin to sort out costumes, props and arrangements for next Wednesday. We will also sort out a filming schedule and a new shot list that we can use in order to ensure we don't leave the theatre short of any shots.

Adobe After Effects

Today, the group came together in the Mac Suite to look at a range of different After Effects that can be used during our post-production editing. Jordan, being the knowledgeably one in this department in the group talked us through Adobe After Effects and showed us a number of tutorials on how to use the software. We have already decided that we wish for Jordan to be the head of special effects in the group and nominated him for the job.

(Above) Adobe After Effects Icon.

We discussed and confirmed as a group on a number of different effects we wish for Jordan to try and include on certain shots we originally planned to take during our time at the theatre next month. Here are the different effects we are considering incorporating into our post-production process.

Group Progress Meeting | With Mr Henton.

Today our group was instructed to come and pay Mr Henton a visit at 12:15PM for a progress meeting. He wanted to talk about our progress, what we our doing well, discuss were we are in the pre-production stage and ways to improve our pre-production. He first of all touched upon our blogs, he used Jose's as an example and went over and stressed the importance of posting regularly. He mentioned how the coursework alone is 20% our coursework mark and that one of the main criteria in marking our blogs is time management.

He then went onto discuss our plans for our production, I told him that we have been sorting out our location and have had it confirmed that we will have access to the theatre. We then went onto tell him that our future plans were that of ordering mis-en-scene.He told us that we should continue to post our progress on our blogs and use it as an progress diary for the examiner to read.

The group now feels we have a clearer idea of which direction we need to head in, in-order to reach success. Next up we will begin to look at different types of after-effects we can use, alongside ordering out outfits/props. We will keep our blogs updated in respect of this.

Location Confirmation Processs

Over the course of the last 3 weeks I have been working hard to try and gain confirmation of a time and date in which the production team can film. I have emailed the manager of  The Lighthouse Theatre on a number of separate occasions without success but I will continue to try and gain confirmation. I have got in touch with a friend of mine who works at the theatre itself and he has recommended I ring her up to gain direct contact with her. I will wait 3 more days for a reply on my emails before ringing the contact number he has given me for Lucy Hatfield (Lighthouse Theatre Manager).

(Above) Here is the email I have sent to Lucy on several dates - CLICK THE IMAGE TO VIEW LARGER

We are now working to tight deadlines and it is urgent that we get this confirmation asap as we need all footage filmed before April. Once we have the confirmation on a time and date then we can form a filming schedule and order any props or costumes we need.

Group Meeting

Today the group came together for the first time in the New Year, after 3 weeks apart during the festive period. We felt it would be a good idea to come together as a group simply to re-fresh our minds on were we are up to with the production and go over our previous thoughts and plans for the production. We discussed the work we had each got unto over the Christmas holiday's and gave ideas on how to improve each others work.

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We also created a basic list of different tasks that needed to be completed before the deadline, we discussed the different props and costumes that we need to purchase, new shots we wish to include and new soundtrack ideas etc.

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Now that we have completed this meeting as a group we all feel that we are in a more able situation in terms of continuing to progress. We will continue to carry on posting our plans and work in the run up to deadline day. We will now look to get in contact with the manager of the theatre as she instructed us to last month.

Camera Shot Research