Pre-Evaluation Summary

Title: Reservation

Film Company: Live Wire

Production by: Wall & Bayliss Productions

Directed/produced by: Kristian Wall, Jack Downes, Shaun Bayliss

Crew list: Kristian Wall, Jack Downes, Shaun Bayliss, Barney Carter-Phillips, Andrew Lawson

Cast: Robert Demont (victim 1), Matthew Doyle (killer), Barney Carter-Phillips (victim 2 & 3)

Location: The Latymer School Basement

Shot Dates: 2nd & 11th December 2008

Equipment: Canon Mini-DV HD video camera, mini-DV tapes (x2), camera batteries (x2), versatile tripod, on-board mic, headphones, whiteboard, clipboard, marker pen, studio lights (x3), blue gel (x3), white throw.

Editing Software: Adobe Premier Pro, Adobe After Effects, Live Type (iMac), Handbrake (imac).

Plot Summary: A modern-type horror/thriller set in present day Britain about an unknown organisation who have captured multiple victims and look after them in the basement of a miscallaneous building in the city. Our film follows one victim who is captured during an alarming investigation about the company, and his experience as he is tortured with many others in a hotel-like set built above the basement. What is the company, who are the torturers and what is their reasons for the random capturings of innocent men? Are they so random after all or are they connected in some way?

Opening Sequence Summary: Our opening two minutes depicts a future moment in the film with our main victim already captured. He wakes up confused and has a conversation with an unknown man suspected of being his capturer. The victim asks too many questions and feels the wrath of his capturer for the first time as he puts him to sleep and leaves the basement. We know nothing more about the characters but find out there is more than one victim in the basement, and there is blood! Our film will continue in the past from this point, showing how the characters got to this point and then showing what happens after this point.

The Final Sequence! :D

Enjoy!

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.

Target Audience

Now our group has finished editing and we have until this Wednesday to edit, I have looked back at all my individual blog posts and re-done the labels to tidy the whole thing up.

One thing I have realised I have not cleared up on this blog was the intended audience for our film, which is a typical horror audience. We thought 18-30's (teenagers and young adults) would probably be the most likely audience with our film meriting an 18 rating due to the horrific violence. However, this does not mean people over 30 cannot watch our film, as I am sure they would. Also, I am sure many under 18's would get hold of the film somehow on DVD and could certainly become popular with younger "hardcore" kids. Simply, the main bulk of our audience would come from the 18-30 bracket. Gender-wise, I think both genders would watch our film even though it could be seen as more male-orientated (actors, violence and plot). Alot of girls I know are into this kind of horror anyway and have an attitude in which they enjoy scaring themselves with their friends. Boys would simply watch it for the gore element and narrative. Many couples would also probably go and see a film like this as horror gives them the opputunity to "snuggle up", so I think there would be an even spread across both genders.

All in all, thrill seekers and horror enthusiasts (especially those of the gore subgenre) are our core target audience, with fans of the Saw and Hostel films being typical target-ees. Our film however, is open to all ages, genders and anyone who wants to come along for the ride!

An Update On Things

It is Friday 9th January and I am at home after a long week back at school. Our production deadline is the coming Wednesday luncthime (14th January). However, our group can render this irrelevant as we have officially finished our final edited sequence, hooray!

Basically, this week has been a mad rush of editing, gaining feedback, making changes based on this feedback, getting more feedback, making more changes etc etc. Today we had one test screen in front of some media students giving us even more critical feedback to work on during the second half of the school day before having one last test screen in front of a slightly different audience of media students after school. This gave us one or two more minor changes to make, which we applied to the sequence. We eventually got confirmation of completion from Miss Blackborow at about 17:05 (a long time after school!) giving us the finished sequence. This is soon to be put on DVD and on Youtube for us all to see and enjoy.

All this editing probably explains why I have not done a blog post since the one telling everyone we were back at school after christmas, and while this has only been a week, i still feel it necessary to explain myself: we have been very busy on the editing software leaving us with hardly any time on our hands to blog (and even this little time was devoted to the group blog and not the individual).

So yeah, that leaves me to tell you that details on all the editing and how we have fixed our sequence up this past week (especially today) can be found on our group blog.

Now we have no more editing to do, we can make a start on the final chapter of this project, and that is the evaluation. I will be back sometime next week to update on how this is going as I will be drafting it first before it makes its grand appearance on the blog. I have rambled on long enough now, bye!

Welcome Back!

We are now back and running for the new year!

Jack and I have recovered from winter illnesses but Shaun has sadly not... but he is still with us editing away this week, in what has been a very successful week so far. We feel we are making great progress with our edited sequence which is near completion. We recieved great feedback from Miss Blackborow and have decided against a re-shoot due to an unavailable actor and the fact we have basically sorted out all the problems we were re-shooting because of in the first place. It is all down to fantastic editing by the team. Good times!