The Final Cut

Tomorrow is deadline day, fitting that it should snow.

As the final day approaches, it is I who must go,

Though this is a sad time, many good times I've had too,

With Jack, Shaun and I, and the rest of the crew,

So here comes my last post, i'll make this post last.

I hope you enjoy the final cut (of Reservation), for now I can say... it's been a blast!

Goodbye sweet blog, I will miss you.

THIS BLOG IS NOW CLOSED.

Family & Friend Screenings

We were given a DVD with our finished sequence on, and as my group had only screened in front of 17-18 year olds I thought I would get some personal feedback from people outside school. Instead of using a questionnaire I just talked to them about it, and this is what I found out.

Mum (aged 46): Does not like the horror genre at all and as a result was very jumpy. She admitted she does not like the violence of the genre but was impressed by the acting and cinematic experience it provided. She missed certain aspects such as the production company and the foot that moves near the end. However, the plot did not confuse her and she got an almighty shock at the end with the hand slamming against the door. She found the flickering lights a bit dazzling and said she would only have watched the rest of the film if I had actually directed it for real!

Dad (aged 49): Does not usually watch horror but would if it was meant to be good. He was very impressed with the music and atmosphere and found the location very sinister. He said he felt nervous the whole way through as if something was going to happen but he was also dazzled because of the flickering lights and as a result missed some dialogue and the foot at the end. He wanted to find out why the victim was there and what had possessed the killer, so would watch on.

Uncle (aged 51): Enjoys quite alot of horror films althought not necessarily gore. He really enjoyed the sequence and understand everything as well as the enigmas that he wanted to find out. He admitted he was a little bit confused by the foot but worked out by the end that it was another victim - adding he thought there was too much clutter around the foot. All in all though, he would watch the rest of the film and actually preferred it to the 'Hostel' film he saw, which he did not like because it was too farfetched.

Cousin (aged 25): Likes horror movies but prefers action thrillers. He was extremely impressed by how filmic it was and the mysteries he encountered - he wanted to find out more! He was a little sad to find no real violence in the scene but I assured him more would have come in the actual film. He had no criticisms at all and told me to give the actors a pat on the back for an Oscar-winning performance.

Brother (aged 19): Loves any films including horror. He really enjoyed the sequence and thought the pace and structure, and how heldback the narrative was was excellent. Being a film student at university, he claimed he could take the film from there and actually make it into something special with a twisted plot. He thought the flickering lights were actually effective in unsettling you and added to the anticipation something would happen. He also was impressed by the depth in the killer's character and said his acting was amazing for a sixth form student. His one criticism was the blurry camera occasionally, saying we could have changed the manual settings to eradicate this. However, he said he would definately want to see more.

Nan (aged 74): Has never watched a horror film because she would be too scared. Like mum, she did not enjoy the violence and could not take the intense atmosphere. She thought it really looked like a film though and added that the acting was convincing and clear. She got confused with the 'putting to sleep' scene and did not see the foot move, but we turned the volume down so she did not get too shocked by the scream sound with the hand, which she thought was the scariest thing she had ever seen. She would not want to see more despite the fact she was impressed with it.

Family Friends (mum & dad aged 40's, one son aged 16, one son aged 13): The mum and dad had pretty much the same views as my mum and dad, with their dad enjoying it slightly more. The 16 year old son really liked it and said he had seen 'Saw', referencing it to the start of that (spooky!). He said he would definately watch on because he likes watching horror films to see how scary they really are and he likes to pick holes in them (though he could not pick any in ours). The 13 year old is not really allowed to watch films rated over 15, but he liked the film, understood it and asked alot of questions about why things were happening (meaning he wanted to find out more). He got a bit scared at the end with the hand, which I think shows the 18 rating would be more suitable and any hardcore 13 year olds can get their hands on the DVD!

Overall, this feedback was very useful and concluded alot of things. The people that mattered most were my brother and cousin (part of the core audience) and they were the ones who had most knowledge of horror and enjoyed the film most because they watched that sort of thing. They were impressed by it, which is very hopeful for the films success. The wider audience had more mixed views about the film, which is expected. The adults in their 40's would not usually watch that genre, but the men did still find it interesting, proving some adults of this age might go to see it. My nan was probably too old and had never seen a film like it, so the potential for old people is not very high, which does not matter a great deal as it is way outside our core audience. The people below our core audience age were the 16 and 13 year old, and they both enjoyed it too. The 16 year old said he would watch on despite being under the age rating, showing lots of kids this age and maybe below would watch such a DVD. Even the 13 year old did enjoy it although slightly creeped out by it all. I think there is a little bit of potential either side of the core audience and plenty within it. At the end of the day, it is probably more about whether you actually like the horror genre or not as to whether you would truly enjoy our sequence!

Audience Screening

We held an audience screening on Monday 19th January lunchtime, showing off our film to 30-40 people in our sixth form. We produced a questionnaire and got them to fill it out. We took a random sample of 11 out of the 30 or so questionnaires (taking every 3). From these questionnaires we were able to come up with the following summary of the feedback, which I typed up on our group blog:

Every sample was from 17-18 age group as they are in our year at school. About half were male and half were female, and traits did not seem to be based on gender as we expected. Common genre likes were action, thriller, comedy, horror and thriller. Someone even said slasher! These genres were shown in favourite films such as Saw, Scarface and Mean Girls.

Every single person recognised that it was an opening sequence and the title was 'Reservation', which was good from our point of view - our film was clear. Everyone also recognised from the sequence the genre, which was clearly horror with elements of thriller/slasher. About 9 out of the 11 people thought the film could be filmed at a normal cinema or multiplex with the other 2 opting for a student film festival. This tells us that our film could target a mainstream audience and be popular enough to show at a normal cinema. Most people opted for teenagers or 18-30's as the targeted audience with some adding horror enthusiasts or people that like to play violent games on the xbox/PS2. This was a pretty similar view we had for our target audience. Only 2 people mentioned that males would be interested so most people did not feel it dominated one particular gender.

The film seemed to make it obvious who the killer and victim was, and one pressed every single person was able to explain the victim was a captive and was being tortured by the killer. People described the killer as evil, insane, scarily polite, bad, mean, sadistic, murderer and psycho. Nobody described the victim so his personality can be identified as miscillaneous or "normal". Most themes identified were along the lines of fear, revenge, violence, evil and death, so that came across well.

All 11 people in the sample enjoyed the film and found it attractive to watch, with one person saying because they thought it had a clear narrative, and others saying it was tense and filmic. The favoured parts of the film were the hand at the end with the scream and Matt shouting, "I SAID BE QUIET!", which did not really suprise us - they were the most dramatic parts. People generally thought the lighting, music and location worked the best with some people suprisingly liking the flickering lights even though we were not sure about it. However, some people were not sure about the regular blackouts stemming from the flickering lights, and someone thought the acting was not up to scratch although we certainly do not agree with this. Alot of questions were asked about the random foot and then hand at the end - this made us pleased. These signified enigma codes and you were meant to be confused by them, as to continue watching the film to find out what they meant and who they belonged to (everyone commented on how they would continue to watch the film, even the people who said they did not like horror and would be terrified!) - so our film was successful in luring in its audience.

The following were the ratings given out of 10 by the 11 subjects: 10, 10, 9, 7, 8 and a half, 9, 8, 9, 10, 5, 9. On average this works out at about 8 and a half out of 10, which is not bad at all for an amateur film project. We realise some scores and comments maybe bias due to friends being present at the screening, but all in all we are very pleased with this feedback, and will take the criticisms on board in our evaluations.

Re-Shoot: Reflections

The re-shoot proved very testing for our group. First of all, we had organised the shoot for Tuesday 9th Decemeber only for one of our actors, Rob, to pull out on Monday due to various commitments. We resolved to shoot the entire thing again with me as the victim instead of Rob. However, the other actor, Matt, was not present at school due to illness from Monday to Wednesday so we had no killer. One option was to recruit Ben Tucker as a new killer but we were so impressed with Matt's acting that this was no option. We managed to resolve a new shote date for Thursday 11th December after some miscommunications with the media department, but this went ahead fine with both actors turning up.

So far, this had raised problems about organisation and communication, with our group learning that we should be able to get hold of actors at all times by a telephone number, that we should leave more time between informing our actors and the date of shoot so it is not such short notice, and that we have to communicate every single problem with our media teacher so she knows what is going on and when people are booked to shoot.

On the actual shoot further problems were evident. A highly inconveniant winter virus commonly known as common flu or a british cold had swept though our school leaving a large chunk of our year group bed-ridden! However Jack, Shaun, Rob, Matt and I had battled our way into school for the shoot, but our illnesses proved quite unproductive. Time was obviously wasted clearing out the space for our shoot quite slowly, and we were overall less motivated to work properly as we just wanted to get it done and go home. Generally, this made us miss some crucial continuity mistakes and filmwork was not as good as in the previous shoot. I was so ill I was barely able to take one shot! After the shoot we took our equipment back to the media department to find it closed, and so we had to leave everything in the school basement until morning. This was because one of our media teachers (who was supposed to be present at school that night), Miss Blackborow, was also incredibly ill and had gone home. This had left us with one more problem on our shoot and that was that our studio lights were without filters.

Looking back at the footage after we realised the lighting was strange, the continuity was terrible, the camera was slightly shaky and the acting was not quite as dramatic due to the actors being ill at the time. We thought one or two of the shots could be inserted into our old footage but none of them really fitted except for one cutaway. Therefore we created a sequence using mostly our old footage and this seemed to work well. However, we had originally re-shot because we did not like the flickering lights on our old footage, and we were told inevitably that we would have to do a second re-shoot to get this perfect.

In our re-re-shoot hopefully we will all be better from our illnesses and able to work more productively by shooting with order and purpose such as in the second shoot, but taking more care in continuity, lighting, acting etc. This should not be a problem, and hopefully this will all come together to gain the perfect set of shots to replace our old footage!

ACTUAL SHOOT: REFLECTIONS

Our shoot went mostly well, with actors and helpers attending, location, props and costumes sorted out, and some decent footage being gained. However, we ecountered several problems along the way, so we discussed these in our groups and came up with this list of problems that can be sorted out or addressed:

- Did not ask for permission to move items around basement in order to prepare the location the day before the shoot, therefore making the caretakers very angry. In apologising and putting everything back to how it was we were told not to move anything until after 3pm on a school evening, and to move everything back to how it was after every shoot.

- The moving around of objects in the basement uses up alot of shooting time.

- Group members have not given long enough notice about them being late for a shoot because of matters such as medical appointments.

- When a group member was not present, action took place without this member knowing leading to confusion the day after (this was the moving of the items on preparing the day before the shoot, with one member not knowing about this until being told off about it).

- Shoots were done without using the shooting script for large parts, so the shot order was random and disorganised leading to missed out shots.

- Actors/helpers were kept a very long time after school without a real break, and sometimes without being needed at certain points during the shoot.

- There was alot of time wasting on shoot because of certain distractions and the novelty of filming in such a scary location in a mildly proffessional way.

- Communication between group members and actors/helpers was often hindered by jokes, unclear messages and short notice (the script being handed to them the day before).

- Using two lights with one on either side of the basement was tricky and one light was often left on for no purpose whilst we filmed using the other light, therefore wasting energy and time (to let the lights cool down before packing them away).

- We were not careful enough with expensive equipment, often acting before thinking, and trying to rush putting away the equipment in order to go home quickly. This resulted in an accident in which a £35 glass light filter was dropped and smashed because it was too hot having only just being turned off.

- Some props were not tested beforehand, such as the mixing of the fake blood going wrong, resulting in pure red food colouring being poured on an actors hand, which proved extremely hard to remove.

- The location proved very cluttered and messy, and all our paperwork, equipment and props were left strewn in random places (out of shot). This increased the possibility of items being lost and time was wasted at the end of the shoot, clearing up.

- There maybe a continuity issue with chains and rope the victim is tied up in and their positions, as well as pieces of black tape at different lengths being used in different takes.

We are going to create a re-shoot list of the shots we need to film (and those we need to film again). We are going to hold another shoot next Tuesday after school with actors, and film all the shots they are in using the shooting script. Any shots we do not need actors for we are going to film in a double media lesson this Friday (jncluding lots of cutaways) also using the shooting script. Here we can also record sounds. With these shots done before Tuesday, that shoot will be quicker and more precise, so actors are not held up so long at school and do not waste their time when they are not needed. Items will not have to be moved for the cutaway shots on Friday as they are all close up cutaways, so this moving job can be done quickly and efficiently at 3pm on Tuesday before the shoot (with some members having a free period then). I have an orthodentist appointment that afternoon at 3.40pm and will not be back for the shoot until 4.15pm. However, I have notified the group and this will cause no problems. We have decided that no helpers are needed for this shoot, and this will help speed things up as too many people present at the last shoot caused many distractions and time was wasted. This time we will be more serious, thorough and organised using the shooting script. All bags, props, equipment and folders will be kept at one part of the room together so that nothing is lost. We will be much more careful with equipment, and lights will not be left on unnecessarily. Furthermore, after the shoot actors will be allowed to go and we will turn the lights off to cool down whilst we pack away the rest of the equipment. This will leave the lights time to cool enough before we pack them away carefully without the possibility of dropping anything. Therefore, we can take this all together back to the media department so the teacher can go home too, leaving us with a clear basement in which we can move back all items to the correct positions before going home.

Overall, we are very happy with the footage and believe there are no problems with the actual project. We are fully prepared for all these problems now after 2 shoots, and everybody know fully what they are doing and what to expect (including actors who know their scripts fully now). We are also aware of the continuity issues and will make sure we know how to keep this the same as the other footage before going on our shoot. We will have better organisation, only bringing the paperwork we really need to follow, therefore allowing us to carry out the final shoot with more purpose and precision, speeding up the process and being far more productive. This will leave us with great footage to finish our projects with no major problems and a very exciting final production.