Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Opening sequence establish characterisation, setting, genre, visual appearance and ideology in a number of ways. this is done by using different media affects in a variety of ways.

I feel that our opening sequence is a good example of how an opening sequence should look, it starts to establish setting at the start of the opening sequence, i feel that when the door opens to reveal a room with a girl inside along with wardrobes covered in sheets helps you start to establish the setting, you see the wardrobes covered and usually when you see this you assume the place is abandoned, so for the audience so far they know this.
From the use of camera angles which allow the viewers to clearly see where the victim in being held hostage and being tortured; in a bedroom or room of some sort, it is not until the viewers see the name of the film "337" that they fully establish the setting as when we pan round we see that clearly its a house number, "337" so we realise that she is being tortured in a house.

Characters are established quite easily aswell, when the sequence starts we see a girl tied up lying on a bed as we get closer we realsie she is the victim from the excessive bruising and blood all over her, here we also establish the ideology of the film, we are on the girls side straight away as she is the one who is bloody and lying unconscience on the bed, the ideloagy grows as the seqience goes her when we see her trying to escape and then finally when she is killed.

You immediatly establish the genre of the film through the use of mise-en-scene throughout the whole sequence, You can tell from the bruised face and blood stained clothes that this film is sometype of horror, later on when we are revealed the extent of her situation that we realsise the film is somewhat familair to films such as Saw and Hostel; coming under the genre of Torture Porn, The horific shouting and screams also establish the genre of horror.

I feel that as three girls in a group we really chanlenged the stero typical directors of torture porn films, usually males are the directors of genres like these, Having us three girls do this i think can be seen as strange espeically as we casted a girl as the main character and used our own gender to be the victim of all the torture. We felt that by us attacking this type of genre being three females would give the message that these situations can actually happen, We also approached it in a realistic way, we didnt nesscarily show graohic toture like most other films do, we did it pshycologically, having the audience know it went it on but never actually seeing this, i think it worked well as it did look realistic again emphaisizing the fact that this can happen in real life.













These two shots the left taken from Saw II 's opening and the other from our opening sequence. As you can see both shots are quite similar, a close up angle shows the emotions of the characters while shownig the graphic makeup of each, which really shows the extent of the damage and torture that has gone on. A close up shot really is effective and you can see so much emotion and extra details of the characters.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product is focused at people who love horror films, preferably the younger generatio/young adults, but it can also interest people of the older generation/middle aged adults. However i feel that it does not represent any particular social group in society but if it were i would have to say the working class. We decided to cast Amy Thorburn as our main character, the victim-the protagonist, because of many reasons. After having looked at the conventions of Splatter and Torture porn films, we saw that our victim needs to be attractive and young-preferably a college or "high school" adolescents, Also after watching opening sequences from Saw , Hostel and Captivity we decided that having a girl as the main character is a good idea, not only will it make the audience more uncomfortable but usually most victims to tend to be girls. Girls usually are seen as the weaker sex which is why having a man play the role would not give the same effect. We all agreed that Amy is very attractive and would fit the part ideally. Shes a typical atrractive girl aswell, with Blonde hair and blue eyes, she seems inncoent with these features which also help empahaise the convention of a torture porn and splatter films. We represented her as the victim by using good camera angles, we showed her as being a vulnerbale character by using high angle shots that emphasised her vulnerabilty within the sequence. Having a young attractive girl makes it harder for the audience to watch horrible things happen to her, which is what most torture porn films to. They create a intense uncomfortable atmosphere not only by using certain camera angles and editing techniques but also by the characters they cast. Culteral Signifiers help greatly too, we made Amys hair greasy and dirty to show she has been held captive for a while, also we did put some blood in her hair, Make up for Amy was very graphic and extremly detailed, We covered her face in pale foundation to create the look that she was ill and perhaps malnourished, her lips looked cracked and dehydrated and her face was very pruple and red, covered in blood and "bruises". To make Amy look more innocent we decided to dress her in a white dress, the white symbolising the inncocence she has, the colour white signifies purity and inncocnece which was perfect, the dress emphasizing her gender as a girl. Our target audience was those of the younger generation, having casted a Amy a 17 year old girl as our main character i feel that the younger genreation can relate more to her as she is of around the same age.

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As we have made a low budget, independant British film, not a Hollywood film which cost hundreds of pounds to film, the media institution that may ditribute our media product would be Film4 this is because film4 eventhough now does broadcast hollywood block buster films it also broadcast low budget high quality films. Such Films like the infamous "Slumdog Millionaire" which one numourous Academy Awards, Film 4 had produced this film and the profit created from this was huge, the racked in a huge revenue of $377,417,293. The film was made out of a gross budget of $15.1 million, the low budget film had made outstanding profits which compared to some Hollywood films which spend lots of money and hardly make any revenue is `, and knowing that Film4 was apart fo it, aswell as Slumdog Millionaire Film4 is responsible for backing a large number of films made in the UK such as Borat and Four weddings and Funeral. I am confident to say that i would like to have Film4 distribute our film.

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience of our media product would be fans of torture por/splatter/slasher films. Also it would be targeted at both males and females from the age of 15+ I believe both genders would be interested in our film as it is a Torture Porn film and filsm such as Saw and Hostel have both genders loving their films. You could say that the film would mainly be targeted at men as some say they can stand the gore and and blood, however i know alot of girls who do genuiley like gorey films, people like me. I also know some men who dont like watchig gorey films as they cant stand the overuse of blood and reality that these things can actually happen... I feel that the audience who watch our film would need to have a stomach for gore and dont actually mind seeing alot blood going on. Our film I think would be classifed as a 15 for the opening sequence, as having found infomation from the BBFC (British Board of Film Classifcation) a film is classified as a 15 when the film contains
• strong violence
• frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
• portrayals of sexual activity
• strong verbal references to sex
• sexual nudity
• brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
• discriminatory language or behaviour
• drug taking
I feel our opening sequence fits into this catorgory perfectly also for a horror film to be classed as a 15 these our the guidlines
At a 15 there can be strong threat and menace (as long as it is not sadistic or sexualised), althought the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

However I only think that our opening seqeunce would be classed as 15, I think that the rest of the film may change the classifcation to a possible 18 depending on what went on during the film, on the other hand the film may stay at a 15

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our audience about our opening sequence, we posted it on facebook. This was to see weather people thought our peice was succesful and weather we should change anything within it, also we wanted to see what our target audience though of it, as on facebook most people we have got are our own age or older so we thought facebook was an ideal place. The feedback we got from facebook was actually quite positive even if no one made it obvious and clear, we got told it was some "freaky shit" which to us is a good response as that is what we aimed to do, Torture Porn idealy is meant to make the audiences uncomfortbale...from the feedback we got i think we really acheived it. We then asked staff and pupils in our media class to see what their overall opinion of it was, many said it was extremly well put together, However one question everyone asked was..."is there any music?" we thought about this alot but decided that in the end we thought it still sounded and looked effective enough to go without, one reason why was becuase we wanted to make it look as realistic as possible and also make it more freaky to the audience.





The last way we adress our audience was by creating a questionnaire. The first question was "did you enjoy our opening sequence?", the feedback we got was good becuase the results came back with over 90% liking our film. This was great for us as we had accomplished the aim of our film, to hit our target audience perfecty and also to have people enjoy it



The second question that was asked was "what genre did you think our film was"? Most people either thought the film was a horror or thriller, however overall they did understand the genre was Torture porn, we can understand why many thought the film could have been horror or thriller, this is because Toture Porn is not a well knwon genre as most people who actually watch torture porn film belive they are wathcing a horror, Toture porn is a sub-genre from horror. Many could also possibly think that it is a thriller due to some of the fast pace movements that go on during the opening sequence. But however luckily most people we asked did know our genre was torture porn.







The next question was "would you continue wathcing?" The answers we recieved were great for this question, around 98% wanted to continue watching the film, which ment that we had captured the audiences attention and left them wanting to watch more. Many felt that they were eager to see what happened and to see the rest of the plot that could happen.







Finally the last question we asked was "did you understand the narrative?" The asnwers we got was great again, 98% said they did understand what was going on, which is very helpful and good as we know that we have got the narrative of our final piece across to the audiences correctly. Overall i think the feedback helped us to create a final peice that was aimed at our audineces and helo to also create a good final peice that makes the viewers want to watch. Even if its only once as its quite scary.






6.What have you learnt about the use of technologies in the contruction of your film?

I have learnt a variety of things about the use of technologies during the construction of your film. For example, haveing researched different genres in order to help us find the perfect genre to do, Using the interent helped sus find the perfect genre to do and also helped us researched into different films surrounding that genre, We found out that Saw, Hostel and Captivity were all major films from Torture Porn the interent helped us understand the gross budgets each film made and told us that these films were successful, which indicated that torture Porn is a good genre. Having the interent really helped as it was easy to access and gave you all the infomation. Watching Dvds and clips from Youtube also helped us definatly choose our genres, even though most freaked us out they did help us decide weather we were willing to do such a good genre. Watching many of the commentarys on the Dvds we began to understand the concept the directors were getting at. Another thing i learnt was choosing the right camera, we decided to stick with the the same camera we used for our preliminary which was JVC camera, the cmaera was very good at capturing everything we needed and alos made a clear non fuzzy picture when they were loaded onto the computer. Using a Tripod was another thing i learnt as we were then able to have still shots without having the cmaera go all wobbly if we had hand-held it. The main thing i learnt though was how to use our editing software, Sony Vegas Pro. Learning to use this was very important as eventhough we may have the shots they may not fit together smoothly. Using the software allowed us to create a perfect seqeunce which flowed well. We learnt how to Fade and overlap shots which gave the impression that time was passing aswell as learning how make the sound fit with all the peice, making it all seem perfect instead of having different breathing rates start and stop when a new shot comes in, we managed to make the sound smooth out.

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt from the progression from it to the full product?
From having the chance to create a preliminary task i feel that we were able get a feel for what we needed to do. Doing the task enabled us to get used to using a camera and tripod and also got us used to creating storyboards and choosing the right place and charatcer,props and other things to include in it overall. We learnt from the tasks that if we planned everything correctly we could get everything done quit swiftly. We chose in that task to use simple angles just to see how they would look, however when it came to this we realised we should broaden our horizons and go a bit wild with things. We decided to take chances and even if they didnt work we didnt have to use it. Also from the preliminary task to the progression of our final peice we learnt that having more shots in a larger space time was alot harder than we thought, We needed to make sure the peice wasnt going to be too long or short which also put pressure on us, we needed to come up with more exciting shots to use, and plan carfully what we were going to do, as in the prelim task all we did was come up with a very simple story line which turned out efffective, but for thsi final peice we knew we had to do more. Alos editing was alot different from the prelimanry task, The task was very simple and didnt need much editing as the shots did come togther and there wasnt much of it, however when we began editing, eventhough it didnt take as long as we thought it would it still did take time to fully complete and make sure eveything was perfect. From doing the final peice i have learnt that the prelimnary task was alot simpler to do as we only had to create around 1-30 secs of footage.

Filming and Editing

Filming
Before we began filming, we started to think weather or not our story board would work due the camera shots that we would be have to do. For example the shot where i had to hang out of the window, even though we had taken the risk assesment for it, we still did not know weather it would look effective, and also the high risk involved did also worry us. However in the end we did take the high risk and luckily it was very beneficial for us, The angle the camera was set was very effect and created a real sense that the girl was trapped, it made us sympathise with her as the audience were placed on the outside free and she was stuck in inside screaming.


During the filming, everything went according to the storyboard and we had no problems. The area we were filming in was set out perfectly so there were no problems in camera angles. We had planned throughly what was going to take place, also as we filmed in chronological order of the opening sequence, when it came to editing the shots all practically fitted together.


Editing

To help us edit our opening sequence we used a excellent editing programme called Sony Vegas Pro which is a software that enables you to edit things which can produce effective media techniques such as fades and filters. The editing software really helped us to create our opening sequence, while also teching us how to use different media techniques in our sequence. I feel my skills have improved from using this software.






However obviosuly we needed to edit as even though they fitted together we felt that the flow of the shots still were a bit off. In order to make it flow easier we decided to fade/overlap and merge some shots together, espeically at the start where we fade two close up of the victims face togther, we did this as it not only makes it flow easier but it also gives the sense that time has passed which makes the audience wonder how long the girl has actually been there for. Which we wanted to create as she would have taken a while to come round.









After having edited the whole of the clips we had, we decided that maybe we could add some extra details in, We wanted to try out what the film would look like in black and white, so after doing this we all agreed that it just didnt fit in with our genre and that the colour of blood should be visable, we felt that having it in colour looked more effective and really could capture the audiences attention, also we felt that black and white did not represent the genre well, torture porn is very graphic and deals with situations that could possibly happen, Black and white is a very clear view of the world, a simple yes or no and there is no middle lining, Our film we thought was the middle lining and having it in black and white just wasnt right. These situation could possibly happen, So we stuck with having it in colour, also we stuck with it becuase it made the blood more visable and the shot more..."wow" That was until we watched it throughly that we thought that one particular shot is very similar to a shot a CCTV camera could possibly have.
We had filmed a shot that was at a high angle from one end of the room, the shot contained the victim trying to untie herself and get out. As its a high angled it not only makes her seem vulnerable and alone but aslo looks as if it is being recorded, so we decided to change only this scene into black white, as most CCTV cameras are in black and white, we then added tittles to the bottom of it, with the time, date and camera number 1, giving the idea that there is more than one camera in the room. It gives the impression that the killer has always been around as he is still watching the victim, it also makes sense as at the end, he finds her trying to get out, the CCTV shot makes it seem that he watched her leave the room so he knew where she was going. We also had looked at Saw and we realised that it can look good as during Saw Films there is always someone watching the victims.



One main problem we had was the sound, the Digetic sound of the victims breathing, we realised that as we fitted and made the shots all work perfectly the sound just didnt sound right, this was becuase the rbeathing didnt fit, so what we had to do was, edit some of the sound. The main problem areas of this, was when the victim stepped out of the room, the sound from out of the room was alot different and really picked up alot of background noise that we didnt even realise was there, so what we did was, using the skills we learnt, we deleted the sound that was in this shot and replaced it with sound from other areas of the scene, which worked well with her leaving the room.






Another time was when she walks down the stairs, we have a shot from the top of the stairs which has a normal digetic sound of her breathing howver when the camera changes angles, to the bottom of the stairs, the breathing sounds very muffled and different, here we again deleted the sound from the shot and replaced it with other sound from other areas that fitted in well.
It was a tricky thing to work out as it still had to work with the facial expressions she was doing, for example we couldnt take sound from when she as wimpering if her facial expression wasnt her wimpering. But that editing techniqueimprove the whole flow really did of the sequence.

We had the problem of weather or not to add some non-digetic sound, meaning music, to our sequence. We finally decided that we should not have any music in the background because we felt that without music and just having the heavy breathing create an intense atmosphere to the audience and really built suspense. We also thought it seemed more realistic that there was no music going on, we thought that if we did have music it would take away the realism of the sequence- that stuff like this can actually happen! and you really wouldnt have music during it- We also couldnt find the right music to go with the sequence... we genrally just thought that not having any non-digetic sound worked alot better just becuase it made the whole feeling for it alot more freaky and scary. Also you could really identify with the charcter and really feel what she is feeling cuase there is no music destracting you making you feel uncomfortable. Some may say that having music creates a more intense build up but we really didnt want that from just the opening.
So we decided just to leave it with heavy breathing as it really does create a goose-pimpling effect. We also made sure that people found it scary and realistic before submitting it as the final draft... so we posted our video on facebook and got some really good feedback that helped confirm weather or not we should have music... we made a deal that if people liked it the way it is and got scared by wathcin it we will stick with it.


Feedback
The feedback we got was very positive and exactly what we wanted, so we decided to keep the film the way it was.
We got told our media was "seriosuly fucked up" which is what we really wanted...we wanted to make the audiences feel uncomfortable which by the comments we got we certianly did :)
We also asked other people about our video and we got such feedback as "excellent...disturbing but excellent".

More Stuff really

Synopsis

To start our opening sequence the sound will be silent as the door slowly opens to reveal the girl laying tied up to a bed, at first we can only see that she perhaps has been hurt and it is not until we get close upthat we see the extent of damage and torture she has gone through. Greasy dirty hair and black eyes with blood show that she has gone through some form of torture and has been kept there for awhile. The drilling sound begins and as the girl begins to come round from the loud sound she realises what has happened to her. The camera then shows the audience that she is tied up and begins to franctically panick, The girl manages to un tie herself and it is up till now that we fully see the are she is in and the way she looks, her clothes are torn and bloody which again show the extent of torture and cruel things the girl has gone through.

The camera switches to a high angle shot at the foot of the bed to show that she is vulnerbale and also we see the conidtions she is in and where abouts she actual is, we establish the setting here.

We have decided to have a shot of the girl banging on the windows to really shwo she is trapped, we are filming this from the outside, this blocking some of the sound and making it quiter and also we want to express the fact that this girl is deserate to get help and we think it is a powerful shot.
After this the girl begins to act phsycotic which shows that her sanity is starting to deteriate, she is despeartly wanting to get out and starts to think of attempting to kill the unkown killer, The use of tools we use and show are very strong and powerful to us as it shows the real depth of torture the girl has gone through as these tools were obviosuly used on her.

As the girl escapes from the room the low angle shot makes her seem as if she is the pwerful one out of the two. However this changes as she starts to panick and starts to walk down the stars
The key aspect of the film is making the killer un seen by the audience but however still creating the effect and feeling that he is still there, this makes the audience feel uneasy as they know he is there but cannot see him which plays on their mind.
The next part is where the killer mainly start to come out, the camera takes the role of the killer ans begins to move down the stairs towards to the girl, obviously wanting to kill her, she at the same time starts screaming at the camera or "the killer" with pleas and begs. The camera gets very close to her and then cuts to the outside of the house where we see the girl die, We are making an opening sequence which could progress onto perhaps new killings in more detail during the rest of the film. We feel the opening seenw ill be effective and should set the audience up for what could possibly come next, also we think it will draw them into the film.

Shooting Script;

Mid shot of door opening and we are revealed to the girl.

Extreme close up of girls face from side of bed, while drilling noise starts, girl awakes

Close up of hands tied to bed, frantically trying to un tie them

High angle and mid shot from foot of the bed, showing full length of girls body and her untying her feet.

Mid shot from side of room, of girl walking past camera to the windows

Close up of girl banging on windows, shooting this from outside, bascially hanging out the window.

Mid body shot then of girl backing away and seeing tools,

Close up of tools and hand grabbing one,

Side extreme close up of girls face, she walks past camera

Over the shoulder shot of the girl walking towards the door

Close up of door handle being opened

Low angle shot of girl walking out the room from outside the door

Mid shot of girl walking down the stairs

Switch to another mid shot of girl but this time from bottom of stairs

Low angle shot, Hand held shot, of the camera getting closer to the girl, walking down the stairs as if it the camera is the killer

Close up of girl creaming into the camera

Close up from outside house , where we can see the girl fall to the floor through the glass

Camera pans round from the window to the house number "337"

And so it begins that we have to again discuss what Props, Characters and Locations we should use in our Opening Sequence.

Location; After thinking long and hard about our location we decided we needed somewhere that had plain walls to really look like a abandonned house and create a eary feeling, we thought havng a room with lots of decoration wouldnt fit as it would look too "homey". We thought that maybe using a shed could work as its eary and looks really shabby and we could easily make it look dirty. However we thought that using a shed would have a lack of space and not enough room to film, so we considered many other places we could film, a forrest? but went against that idea as many films we had watched all set place in rooms and we thought it looked more effective. As it gives the effect that the killers have actually thought it through and made ana ctual place where they torture there victims..not just thrown them into a forrest. So the location we finally thought of was my dads house, 337 Fulbridge Road, Walton, Peterborough. We immediatly thought that the house number 337 had a eary ring to it and decided that we should call the film 337. We chose my house and my bedroom, because the walls of my bedroom were plain and the florrs were an old wooden floorboards, the doors also added to the aura we wanted to create as they were quite dated. Also in my bedroom i dont have many things within it so clearing it out will be really easy, The bed is positioned in perfect way with it facing opposite the window and near the door. So when we start to film everything is in the perfect postition and will flow easily.

Sound; We have throughly thought through what Non digetic and Digetic sound we can include in our opening sequence. We are thinking about perhaps having the non-digetic sound of an eary slow music in the background. This is to add effect that the person is in trouble and there is a big builkd up, it will also contarst with the fast pace of movement when the victim is trying to un tie herself. However we are not certain we will have this, Most of the films we reasearched did not have any non-digetic sound or if they did it was not obvious it was there. It usually would mingle and intertwine with the heavy breathing and sound of objects in the frame. However we are certain that when the victim comes around we wil have some the non-digetic sound of perhaps hammering or drilling or even screaming, this sound is going to be put here so that the victim wakes up t it... We were thinking that this noise could become digetic sound if we decided to have a quick shot of the noise being made but thsi is still undecided. It will all depend on how much time we have and weather the shot will work as we still need to have the sound coming through as the we see the victim wake up.

Dialogue; Most of our dialogue is very simply and will most probabaly contain alot of cursing and screaming.

Lighting; For lighting, we decided not to use any lighting boards or any extra lamps in our opening clip because we thought the natural light would look more authentic. Plus we want our clip to look as natural as possible but also slightly dark, but lucky for us Gemma has big dark curtains in her room so they worked perfectly blocking out enough light, and then when Amy opens the curtains, it looks like normal day time, that helps makes it seem freaky because of the state she is in.

Characters; We have two character in our opening sequence the victim and the killer. However we have decided the killer will never be reavealed in the opening. For some shots the camera will actually take the role of the killer. The audeince know the killer is there but never see him, we think this adds an scary freaky effect and messes with the audiences mind. The victim we have decided will be a girl, We chose a girl as we thought that having a man seemed unsual and in a sense that women can be portrayed as the weaker sex, also typically in most "torture porn" films the victims tend be more women than men. We also thought that by having girl and us being girls we can really send the message out that this can genuienly happen, maybe with not so much violence and torture but can happen and tpically in society it is the women who are preyed upon. Hence why also the Killer if we did have a real person playing it would be a man, This is because is all the films we watched the killer was a man, in Saw it was John Cramore a.k.a Jigsaw. And in society men are stereotypically the ones who are the killers. To put it bluntly. Amy Thorburn will play the Victim.

Character Representation;

"The victim"

In order for us to create a vulnerable approach to the girl we will use a verity of shot to create this, High angled shots will be used to show her vulnerability whereas the mid shots of her will show her being all alone in the room she is in and being the only victim in there. We need to show the girl as being the victim. During the opening sequence the victim begins to act quite mad and psycotic, this being becuase she has no clue what has gone on and is seriosuly desperate to get out of where she is, close ups of the camera will show her emotions change from deperation to anger and fury which makes her become crazy and have the deisre to kill the killer. However at one point the girl does become the more powerful person, this is when she is going to kill him and starts to act as the more powerful person of the two.

"The Killer"
The representation of the killer will be representated as the actual camera in some on the opening sequence, We hope the camera movement when it is filming walking down the stairs will act as the killer, The girl is going to be screaming at the camera so it does give the effect that he is the camera.

Costumes; The costumes will we have are going to be covered in blood alot. We are thinking that the vic tim should wear white to show that she was pure before the torture began. This may probably be a dress as that also symbolises a inncocent girl. We hope to be able to cover the dress in smear blood, and will definatly be ripped up to show that she has been tortured. The makeup on the girl will consist of blood and bruising by using normal makeup, we hope to achieve the look fo someone who has been through alot of gruesome torture and is covered with dryblood and dirt, he face makeup will also have blood on it and have dark black eyes as if she has been beaten, we hope to make her look pale aswell so that she look ill at the same time. Her hair will be greasy and messy as if she has been there held captive for a while, Overall her costume will be very bloody and disturbingly gruesome.

Props; The props we are going to use will be an empty made...literally the bed frame with the matress on it, no bed sheets or anything and loots of dirty/ plain sheets to cover the warddrobes again to add the effect of an abandoned house. Another major prop we are going to have a load of tools covered in blood, we got this idea from a poster from Hostel Part II, the poster included lots of tools some had blood dripping from it, we decided that we should have some tools covered in blood so that the audeince can see what the killer had done to the victim in order fro her to be covered in blood, some tools could also represent the past victims he has killed as some may be rusty. Blood is also a big prop we will use as we need it to cover alot of things.


Risk Assesment
Before we begin filming we have thought about all the risks that could take place while filming.
We are going to be filming in a house, in a bedroom so there is not much that could go wrong there unless you count normal hazards that could take place, for example, a fire which is most liekly not to happen as we are not using matches or flames while filming. However the main risks we knew could effect us are the use of the sharp and dangerous props, we have alot of dangerous tools whihc we will use and before filming we need to cover this in blood and look realistic, we realise we must be careful while holding these tools as some are extremely sharp knifes where we have to touch the blades in order to cover them in mud and blood, to get a true effect. We also know that we should not mess around with the knifes or tools and be careful while moving them around, however to be on the safe side we have a first aid kit avaliable near us while filming. The girl (character) who must handle the tools while filming must also be careful not to harm herself as at one point she drops the knife, none of us will be near the dropping and she will make sure she drops it at a safe distant away from herself.

The next major risk we have is when we film the shot from outside the window, we have named this a high risk as one of us will need to lean out of a top bedroom window in order to capture the shot, We have highlighted that the other two girls who are not filming the shot will hold very tightly onto the girl who is filming and insuring they have a tight grip on her so if by chnace she leans too far they still both have a hold of her by her waist and legs. We have also ensured that we will not be leaning too far out the window to capture the shot. However to be on the safe side again we have emergency contact numbers avaliable if anything were to go wrong. However after assesing the risks we will put ourselves in we know what not to do and how to be careful when doing or dealing with these risks.

Research For Opening Sequence

After having finished producing our preliminary task we our now going to start producing an opening to a film.
The aim is to "Produce a two minute opening sequence of a film to a genre of your choice"

I think i should explain to you that the infomation coming up in my blog is not the original stuff, when we first were given our task we decided to go down the route of Vampire Genre mixed witha bit of horror, we had written tonnes of stuff about it, storyboarded it and began filming. However after we filmed and began the editing process we realised this just was not working. None of the shots would work and the whole storyline was honestly just rubbish and none of us liked what we had produced. So we scrapped the idea and started fresh, we didnt think we should wait until we finished editing the first one because by then it still may not have worked and would have been too late. Sooo...now we have come up with an entirely new idea for out opening sequence :)

We considered the many genres that our film could be eliminating the Vampire Genre, However this was not a hard choice for "Bi Jug Productions" we decided that we could still incorporate some aspects of the genre horror/thriller , we thought that if we planned carefully enough, kept the storyline simple but good we could easily make it work, we orignally chose this genre because we all thought we could really get our teeth into it and produce something really good, I am the only one out of us three girls who really really enjoys horror films but the other two even though they do not like horror/thriller still liked the idea of producing a horror/thriller film...which is a bit confusing but hey. I am a huge fan of any horror/thriller film and the gorier the better.

Genres;

Horror;

Film; Are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.Early horror movies are largely based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre, such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opera. More recent horror films continue to exploit the monsters of literature., and also draw inspiration from the insecurities of modern life.

Fiction; Horror fiction is a genre of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to scare its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural. The trait of the genre of horror is that it provokes a response, emotional, psychological or physical within each individual which causes someone to react with fear. In order for that response to be elicited there are different techniques used, such as unreal figures like phantoms, mummies, or more real situations and figures serial killers, rapists and kidnappers. The main ingredient within horror is that the reader or viewer can relate to it somehow and that there’s always something unexpected on its way. The whole horror genre is built upon people’s fear of the unknown and anxieties.

According to H.P. Lovecraft: "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."



Alfred Hitchcock; 13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980

Was an English Film maker and producer who produced many techniques in the suspense and pyschological thriller genres. After having lived in United Kingdom for quite a while and establishing a highly succesful career here in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker.

Torture Porn
Another Genre we all wanted to do was "Torture Porn" or just "Torture", now yes this may sound quite bizarre, and to be honest when we discussed what we wanted to do and our teacher told us what genre it came under, we found it quite weird too. It was unusually weird as we are a group of three girls, and girls do not usually approach this, but still we really liked the idea of this. Splatter Film also came under the genre of horror.

Splatter Film, I have researched the term of Splatter Film and the characteristics from Wikipedia. It is a sub-genre of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body. Most typical horror films deal with fear of the unknown, the supernatural and the dark, the impetus for fear in a splatter film comes from physical destruction of the body. There is also an emphasis on visuals, style and technique, including hyperactive camerawork. Where most horror films have a tendency to re-establish the social and moral order with good triumphing over evil, splatter films thrive on a lack of plot and order.

Slasher Film is a sub genre of the horror genre typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking, and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a chainsaw or scythe. Although the term "slasher" may be used as a generic term for any horror movie involving graphic acts of murder, the slasher as a genre has its own set of characteristics which set it apart from related genres like the Splatter Film.

Torture Porn, or otherwise known as Gorno. I researched into torture porn also from the website Wikipedia. Torture porn is a sub-genre which has come from the other other subgenre of Splatter Film, Toture porn depicts nudity, torture, sadism and mutilation. Major films such as Hostel, Saw and Captivity have used Torture Porn within their films. These films include nudity and alot of torture, making viewers uncomfortable. The first film that was classed as Torture porn was the Hostel. The gruelly torture the victims went through clearly portrayed this, however as the realease of the saw sequels came out the torture within films began to get more gruelsome and cruel. Saw is classed as Torture Porn by critics however the directors disagree with the classification. Torture porn is seen as a very popular genre in the box-offices. Saw which was made for $1.2 million grossed over $100 million, whereas Hostel which cost less that $5 million grossed $80 million. Torture Porn combines both sex and violence.

I had found an article on the internet from the Guardian Newspaper- Kira Cochrane on the rise of "Torture Porn", which really helped which discussed the catergory of the rise of Torture porn.
Within the article is tells us that torture porn films usually contain women, which is most disturbing as "it's the violence against women that's most troubling, because it is here that sex and extreme violence collide" however some are equal with the cast being both men and women "In most of these films, both men and women end up being sliced, gored, dismembered, decapitated. In that sense they offer audiences equal-opportunity gore."

I read that many torture porn films have a tough time with the publicity and advertising with their films. They get alot of criticsm for the adverts and billboards which our out. "The publicity campaigns for many of these films flag up the prospect of watching a nubile young woman being tortured as a genuinely pleasurable experience. So, for instance, a recent US billboard campaign for the upcoming (mainstream) film Captivity featured the film's star Elisha Cuthbert (just voted the 10th sexiest woman in the world by the young male readers of FHM magazine) in a series of four photographs. In the first (labelled ABDUCTION) a black-gloved hand covers her mouth. The second (CONFINEMENT) shows her, with bloody fingers, struggling to get out of a cage. The third (TORTURE) has her face encased in an odd white mask, tubes shoved up her nose, and apparently filled with blood. Finally, under the word TERMINATION, she is shown laid out, apparently dead."

I think whenever I watch a Film which is categorised as Torture Porn i do think weather or not they have an affect on people in the world who watch it. like does it inspire them to carry out such crimes and torture to other people, does it cuase a problemt o younger people who obviously watch the films illegally. The article says "Of course, watching one of these films won't turn a sane, decent individual into a killer or a torturer, but you have to wonder what effect this widespread meshing of sexuality and graphic violence will have on the young men at whom they are primarily aimed. The clear logic behind all these films, TV shows and images appears to be that if a young, good-looking, barely-clad woman is sexy while alive, she's even sexier when she's being tortured, or when she's a bloody corpse" Torture Porn seems a really interesting genre to do, i think that as we are a group of girls and after having read that article a group of girls tackling a film with this genre is unusual, most directors are male who produce these films and also cast women for their films. Its as if we are saying that yes this could possibly happen to us girls but maybe with not as much drama or gore...

Eli Roth Infomation from Wikepedia

Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American Film Director, producer, writer and actor. He is part of the group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack because of their association and their focus on the horror genre.


Film critic David Eldestein in New York Magazine credited Roth with creating the horror sub-genre "Torture Porn" or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Roth has said he hates the term, and feels "it is far more reflective of the critics who use it and their lack of understanding of the genre than of the films themselves"
Eli Roth created both Hostel and Hostel Part II

We looked at the typical conventions from Slasher Films, Found from wikipedia.

• The Killer—With notable exceptions, the killer in the slasher film is usually male. His identity is often, but not always, unknown and/or concealed either by a mask or by creative lighting and camera work. He is often mute and seemingly unstoppable, able to withstand stabbings, falls and shootings by his victims. His background sometimes includes a childhood trauma that explains his choice of victim, weapon and location (the killer can be made out to be pitiable or understood). Slasher villains tend to prefer hand held weapons such as knives, axes, hatchetes, and chainsaws as opposed to bombs or guns.
  
• The Victims—The victims tend to be young, attractive, high school or college-aged adolescents. Much has been made about the choice of victims. Some theorists claim that they young people are punished for indulging in vices such as pre-marital sex or drugs. Other theorists claim that is simply a matter of the activities making the victims unaware of their surroundings, making them easy prey for the killer.
  
• Final Girl—Slasher films frequently only have a single survivor. She is frequently a female peer of the victims but is cinematically developed in comparison to his or her cohorts. She frequently doesn't indulge in the illicit activities of her friends. The heroine is also known as the final because by the end of the movie, all of her friends are dead, and she's left alone to deal with the killer. Certain movies do deviate from this in favour of having a final boy who tends to be morally suspect.
  
• The Violence—One thing that separates slashers from thrillers and murder mysteries is the level of violence. Slashers de-emphasize plot and character development in favor of violence and terror. Plots are constructed around giving the audience the experience of watching the killer murders. The deaths are often violent and graphic, with originality being valued in the later films to hold audience interest.

These conventions and research into the genres really helped us think about what possible films to reasearch at, also they help us really think about what our opening sequence should be like, luckily most of the ideas we had already fitted under the conventions of a splatter/slasher/torture porn film. Looking at the conventions really helped us with the details of our opening sequence.

Film/TV Analysis

We chose to analyze both Film and Tv as when we did our spider diagrma and storyboard not all our inspriation came from films we had seen but also from television.

Saw; The movie series ranging from Saw I-VI

Saw began in 2004, a horror film directed by Darren lynne Bouseman, It follows the story of the pshycotic John Kramer, who sets out to kill and punish those who have done wrong or who do not appreciate life, however he never actually kills anyone, this is because he has made a puppet known as Jigsaw, each invidual victim is captured by the Jigsaw Killer, whose name is a misnomer, he never directly kills anyone, instead putting victims in situations where they must go through physical and/or psychological torture to survive and escape with better appreciation of life. Each Saw film follows a similar storyline, the victims are captured and place in, what will be the place where they will die, then as always there is screen or tape recorder which will also be in the room. Usually after they regain consciousness the screen will turn on or they find the tape recorder and listen to what is said, here is where we see/hear Jigsaw and their fate is told. Within the first Saw the graphic deaths were nothing compared to the following sequels, as each Saw was produced they became more and more detailed and vivid, you can actually see very graphically the torture and the deaths that occur.

http://www.officialsaw.com/
This link here is the offical saw website which allows you to view all the trailers to each saw film.

After having watched all the saw films openings we decided to really look into the opening of Saw II as out of all of them we felt SAW II had alot of camera angles/movements and other media techniques that could help us get inspiration from.

SAW II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIhQ5IrxSPc

As the film begins the first angle we see is a full point of view shot, the camera acts as if it were the victim within the film, we see exactly what the victim sees, and the way he sees it. Th shot is really effective as it makes us feel like we are the victim in the film and starts to really get us into the film. The camera acts as if it were the victim by moving the camera around the room in the motion of a shaking head. In the film we know the victim is waking up and searches round the room to find out where he is, this is exactly what the camera does. We are then revealed the identity of the victim and are shown a establishing shot from behind the victim, this allows us too see properly what his surroundings are and gives us some insight into what is going to take place over the next couple of minutes. the camera begins to use short snappy shots that get the pace going, it quickly zooms into the behind of the victim and then shoots from directly above which makes him appear vulnerable, which he is. the victim has positions his upwards so that the camera can then zoom in to it...allowing us to see what has happened to his face. However it is no ordinary zoom that the camera does, the camera in time with the music cuts different shots getting closer and closer until we see a very extreme close up shot of his face. Here we see that there is serious damage to his eye, the camera then shoots the peice of cruel equipment and does a extreme close up of the spikes within the face mask, which tells us that this is what most probably will kill him, The sound within the two minutes is a non-digetic music which is very eary and has a echoey sound to it and really sets the scene and makes it more dramatic aswell as also building tension, you can mainly hear the non-digetic sound if you listen very carefully as most of the other sound is digetic and over powers the non-digetic sound, it also really blends in within the shot as it does not sound like normal music but just sounds like an echo and faded drum beats and. The digetic sound within the shot does over power the non digetic sound in some parts of the clip, the sound of the victims breathing is really emphasized and also the movement of the all the objects is also emphasized and made lounder, for example when the victim turns the mirror the mirror squeeks extra loudly, again with the timer the timer is made louder to exaggerate the timing and also makes the shot even more intense and the sound of the timer is fast paced. Also as the camera moves the sound of that is also clearly head to make it seem as if the person is really turning his head. The lighting for the opening scene is very dark with little light which could show that there is no hope for the victim, the main colours in this are dark greens and the only other colour that really stands out is when Jigsaw appears on the screen in black and white. The camera once Jigsaw appears on the screen switches from viewing the victim to the video, doing over the shoulder shots, here we can identify the 180 degree rule, the camera sticks to the left hand side of the victim when viewing the video and when the camera switches to the victim to see his reaction it stays to the on the right hand side which does not confuse the viewers as the eye contact relationship has not been changed.

I think that Saw II contains many camera angles within the opening two minutes, which sets the scene and also shows that even with the large variety of angles it can all still fit into two minutes and look extremely good. We have been inspired by the techniques used in Saw II and will most probabaly used some the shots in our opening scene. Also as we all have seen the whole of the film we all we again inspired by the storylines, props and overall out come of the film.

Hostel, Part I and II

They were both directed and produced by Eli Roth, both films follow a similar storyline that being, that backpackers fall into a trap and end up being bided on a auction website. This auction website is from the company of "Elite Hunting" and auctions people off to be torture, these people who do bid can have the victims tortured in any way they like all for a certain amount of cash.
Hostel: part 2 pretty much has the same story line as Hostel part 1 where rich business men and women all place bets on random people (usually back packers) to kill in any way they please. This one follows a group of 3 girls backpacking across Europe when a stranger invites them to the village party that is held every year, little did they know they would be lead to their death. One of the girls meets a guy along the way and he ends up a victim just like the most of the girls. To the viewers surprise one girl manages to escape, but the only way you are allowed out of the building is to kill someone, so she ends up killing the man you tries to kill her. This film crosses the boundaries of gore, making you cringe in your seat and cover your eyes, but you can't stop watching! The way that the killers used their tools in this film really inspired us into using the theme of murderous household weapons like hammers, drills etc. You can tell we used this idea because in our clip there is a shot of the tools covered in blood which almost looks similar to the Hostel: Part II advertising poster.
Both films do not hold back when it comes to bloody scenes, they show you everything! This is why we chose to look at it: to see how we could film our own bloody scenes without it looking cheesy, cheap and not high quality, also because they show you in depth the characters emotions and this is quite an emotional clip and we thought we could take ideas from this and re-work them for our own.Overall we thought that Hostel really expressed the genre torture porn. We found watching both films quite horrific at times which means it’s really good if it makes you feel like that!

Like Saw, Hostel creates a atmosphere that makes the vieweres feel uncomfortable, with all the brutal torture scenes, it makes us feel extremly worried and again vulnerable while watching as the scenes are so graphic, Hostel like Saw has again inspired us from the use of camera angles and movement, when the camera gets right up and close to when the victims get hurt, we can graphically see bones and flesh being ripped apart, there really is no border line, hostel certainly has gone way over the limit of gore.

Captivity

A 2007 torture porn film, deirected by Roland Joffe, the film really is a one off film that really messes with you mind, the tag line for the film; "When You Think The Worst Has Happened....Think Worse" makes you think the film is seriosuly awful, not nessacrily with gore but physiologically the film does mess with you. At one point the victim Jennifer is made to believe that she has been showered with acid, a form of pshciolgical torture, we see this as a point of view shot, the girl is laying on a chair with a shower head above her conencted to acid, the acid begins to pour out and the camera switches to the next scene of jennifer laying captive on a bed with bandages on her face, we think that she has been violently tortured here, but as she starts to peel the bandages away we are reavealed that she wasnt poured with acid, she was made to belivbe she was to mess with her mind, she begins to loose her sanity, This scene really does disturb you.

The film opens with the torture of a young man (whose face is covered) - 2 tubes are inserted into his nose, and (via a foot pump) a greenish fluid in pumped in through one pipe - causing blood to pour out through the other. The man's captor then kills him with a large hammer.

The opening scene, is very graphic and at first you dont realise what is going on, but as it carries on you really dont want to watch it, the camera is postions at a low angle, making the victim well the props seem more powerful, which in this case they are, they are the powerful things in the scene as they are controlling whats is going on.

The colours in the scene also make us feel uncomfortable, they are very dark and yet bright, things which are yellow or white appear very bright and vivid which makes the scene more strange, the story of whats going on doesnt match with the colours, nothing should be bright and really makes a contrast, of good and bad, the colours represent good yet there is no good going on here.

After watching Captivity we like the way the pshciolgical torture it had and may possible include this somehow in our final peice, Captivty really did mess with your mind with all the sick and twisted story lines which keep getting worse and worse, i did not think this film was as good as Saw or Hostel but still i really thought it expressed the genre of torture porn extremly well, it expressed it so well that the original version was only realeased in Spain Argentina and the U.K