The Last One Standing- final opening sequence

The Last One Standing - click this link to view our final opening sequence piece.

Directors Commentary

Directors commentary - click on this link to view our directors commentary of our final opening sequence piece, 'The last one standing".

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening thriller sequence you are introduced to all characters through the use of freeze frames, and all these characters are all represented as being student explorers. As the whole opening sequence is set in a location where these sterotypes would normally go to for their spare time. To approach this sterotype we planned and have made the characters dress in outdoor clothes which was choosen in the early process of our planning. The outdoor clothes e.g jackets, would help represent them as these sterotypical exploers. The choice of making the characters follow this sterotype is set out to be positive and not negative to our audience. We made them seem positive by not going too much to the fact the characters love the outside nature, for example here is a picture of a more sterotypical explorer but shown as a negative representation (left). We have followed a sterotype that is showing a neagative representation to females. The sterotype is saying that femalee can't protect themselves and this is shown in our opening sequence as a female character goes out into the woods alone and ends up dead. We use this sterotpye to attract our audience as they maybe believe in these from research we have done, and this will help make the film be more aimed at the niche audience that we are intended to look at.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We think that to define our film sequence's genre of horror/thriller, we have done this by having the theme blood, suspense, fear and disturbing images in our opening sequence. So for our media product one of the targeting audiences would be teenagers who can take disturbing things, who can see death images. People who are brave to watch a horror/thriller genre is our main target audience. we have grabbed the attention of our audience by having the cast as teenagers who are the same age as our target audience. the fact that it hasd the genre or horror/thriller is a typical genre what teenagers are watching in modern society.

We would say that we don't really have a protagonist as we don't have one main character in particular, however we would say that the teacher in our film who gets most of the camera time and delivers the most dialogue (Ciaran Keavney) can be seen as the protagonist in our opening film sequence. The teacher also has mainly close up shots to show he may be the protagonist. The teacher relates to the audience as he is seen as a more socaible and approachable teacher as teenagers in our target audience like teachers to be like this character.

The use of high-angle camera shots makes attract our audience in believeing that this is from a persons view in the tree's looking down on there victims or prey. Making our audience the fear more as the audience may expect whats going to happen but the characters don't, this will also give a better spectators view as the audience on the film. The use of handheld camera gives another point of view of the characters and how they would see the surroundings. This also builds up tension and fear of something is going to happen, as the handheld camera is very shakey and uneasy to see whats happening on the screen. Doing these camerashots have helped very well to help attract the audience to be more drawn into the film so they can find out what will happen in these mysterious woods.

Progression from the preliminary task to the main task.

From our preliminary task we have learned how to make a good plan of deatailed shots on paper and this helped alot in making our and editing techniques to make our film genre be fitted perfectly as a thriller/horror.

First to help our progress was to find a location that fits our genre (thriller/horror). We did this by looking at variety of locations such as forest's and parks, as shown in this picture to the right of a location we looked at but didnt use. This location did not fit to our genre so good as it was not as enclosed or clostraphobic to make it seem more horrific or build tension and suspense to our opening sequence. Therefore taking this into account we chosen Alexandra park as the woods in the park was more enclosed to make our genre seem more fit to having a fear feeling to it. We also chose Alexandra park in our planning because it was much easier for all members of our group to get there with no problems, as it would of been harder for the group to get to Chorlton.

Our group have found many skills from the preliminary task which we have used in our main task. Such as the 180 degree rule and adding effects to our timeline to show cuts and tranisitions across each shot. These two skills that we consumed from the preliminary have been used in our main task as shown on the picture to the right, where we have used a cross dissolve transition on our timeline to make the film seem more intresting and attract the audience to watch our horror film.

We took into advice from a preliminary task some certain shots aswel, such as the match cut shot in our opening sequence. This helps with our genre of our film in help to progress through to make the audience like our film and this will be helping for our target audience to build a word of mouth from watching the film, then they will tell their friends about the film to get more of our niche audience to watch the film. Using the match cut was a clever way of begining the tension as two of the characters walk into the woods with no clue who or what is out there.

Overall in our main task we have taken the techniques and skills from our planning, production and editing of our preliminary task, which helped very well for our main task. We learnt a difficult range of camera shots and editing techniques such as freeze frames. We have also learnt much more about our genre and to make each shot and every editing technique to fit with a thirller genre, so this will help in further films if need to be with the genre of thriller/horror.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Well firstly we think that by having teenagers (meaning the cast) who fit the film rating 15 and over , having to acting a film sequence really goes to fit our target audience. Our film sequence isn't targeted at girls but both genders; male and female.

Secondly we think that teenagers who like to go camping can also be our targeted audience, because by watching our film sequence in may give an insight for teenagers who are both male and female to be aware of some of the things that may occur in the woods in a park late at night.

All teenagers are more likely to be clumsy but by watching our film sequence they may gain a slight bit of knowledge on how to be careful.

Our opening film sequence isn't really targeted at a specific ethnicity as our film sequence mostly concentrates on targeting students of any sort of the age 15 and above. The students can be of any ethnicity, there are none in particular. However we would say that because our film sequence's storyline is based on students going on a camping trip with a teacher in the woods in something that is more likely to happen in Europe. For example I wouldn't exactly say these things would happen in Asia, especially India and Pakistan, as in them sort of countries it has a more higher risk of something bad to happen andthey are unsafe countries. So for that reason Asian families don't exactly let their children out late at night and especially not to go on camping trips.

Our film sequence contains blood, suspense, fear and disturbing images. So for our media product one of the targeting audiences would be teenagers who can take disturbing things, who can see death images. People who are brave to watch a horror/thriller genre is our main target audience.

Lastly we would say that our film sequence is targeted at a niche audience because our film sequence is an independant film, and independant films are usually aimed at a small audience. And our storyline helps with this as it relates to our audience.

The media insitution that would distrubute our media product and why?

We have chosen that the distrubuition company to take our film and get it into cinemas would be Artisan Entertainment. We did reasearch into this company and found they distrubuted many films similar to our film, as such from the similar film we are making 'The blair witch project' was distributed behind this company.

These production and distribution companies are big and being realistic, they wouldn’t produce or distribute our media product. However, we did some research about what kind of low budget independent British film companies would produce or distribute our product, a British distribution company, called 'Dogwoof' would also distribute our film. They would be useful to help distribute our thriller film around the UK. DogWoof film company has a online website so this would get our film to be easily distributed.

Another film production company that would distribute our media product would be Hammer Film Productions they are a Britsh film company that produced a lot of films that have a genre of thriller.

Another option for distributing our film could be Film4 Productions which is a production company owned by channel 4. They produced a lot of films made in the UK and all of them were reasonably low budget films for example Shaun of the dead which is a British film of low budget and was produced by Working Title 2. Other films successfully produced by Working Title 2 are Billy Elliot and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Working Title is a production company which might be interested in our media product because it is a bigger production company than Working Title 2.

To market our film we would make trailers and clips around the web to find more about the film as the release date comes near. This would be a very effective way for marketing our film through viral marketing. As we have a target audience of 15-21's, and the age of our target audience will mostly all use the web for many things such as films coming out.

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge froms and conventions of real media products?

Before we went out to film our opening sequence we had to research and plan it. We came up with many ideas. One of the ideas was is that we wanted to make it as realistic as possible. We wanted it to be high quality and wanted to make sure it looked like a professional film. You can produce a professional film opening sequence by using the same type of equipement that the film industry uses.

Our media product uses various forms and conventions of real products. Firstly, when were filming our opening sequence we used a tripod to make sure the footage wasnt shaky this makes it look professional at a level. If we didnt use a tripod the quality of our film wouldnt really be high quality the way we wanted it to be. The camcorder we used was a small camcorder it wasnt the big ones that are used to make films out in the film industry. Even though the camera wasnt a high standard we co-operated with what we had. We used different angles and shots to improve the quality.

We wanted consistency in the making of the film sequence. To make it accurate we made sure that the scenes didnt jump from one to another and that it was consistent. We wanted the film to be accurate as possible therefore we made sure that we kept the same costume when we needed to.

Final Cut Pro was the editing software which we used. This was a really good software to use because we could do all sorts to our original film sequence. For example we could add different effects, colour, transitions and speed the clips. The software was complicated but obviouslyt not as complicated as the one the film industry uses. Even though we didnt use one like the film industry our film sequence was still a high quality media product.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We learnt various new skills from various media technologies. A particular one was the use of the Apple Mac comouters. Before beginning our media coursework Apple Mac computers were new to some of us. The layouts and features differ from a 'PC'.

We used a variety of other media technologies which help contribute to the completion of our coursework. A number of websites were used to help with the research and planning in pre production.

We used YouTube to research other film openings such as 'Silents of the lamb' and 'The Usual Suspects'. Our genre is a thriller, therefore the fims we researched on YouTube were of the same genre as our opening sequence. For example 'The Blaire Witch Project'. Watching this we started coming out with ideas on what we should include in our film sequence.

We also used the website called 'IMDB' to research more into these films, from this we learnt who the directors, stars and the running time was for the film.

We used the website Blogger to show all our pre planning and preperation for the preliminary task and main task. It shows everything we've done from the start of the coursework till the end.

We used an editing program called 'Final Cut Pro' which was fairly straightforward to navigate around as there was a help icon at the top of the page if we needed to find a certain effect or transition we could just type it in there and it would automatically find it for us to use. We used Final Cut Pro to capture all our clips and then rearrange them on the timeline. After this was completed we used a tool called 'mark in' and 'mark out' to crop out the clips that we didnt need.





We also used the college equipment which included digital camcorders and tripods, which were easy to use as they had the basic record, pause, rewind, fast forward and play functions. The tripods were easy to assemble as they just required us to open them up using the clips that were provided. When we were out on location filming, we learnt that without the tripod the camera footage is shaky and this wasnt the effect we wanted in our openibg sequence. There was a scene in our film where we didnt need the tripod and we wanted a shaky effect.

Whilst out filming we had to make sure that we recorded a gap before and after the clip we recorded so it would be easier to edit together and cut sections off without erasing the part of the clips that were essential. We also used the digital camcorder to take pictures of our location.

Re-shooting shots

We have been out today to reshoot two of our shots in our main task. The shots we had at first were too obvious that one of the characters were looking at the camera and plus it didn't really go with the genre. So for that reason we decided to redo the clips that didn't fit in and that wern't clear to understand the speaking. Also we analysed our video and we spotted a few mistakes such as jump cuts, we realised that one of the clips where a character called Saba picks up a log to help out with the fire, the clip quickly skips to her talking, which didn't really look right. We cropped part of the clip and lengthened part of it, to make sure it looks right. Everything that were doing in our main task , we do to our best ability. We have really stuck into our project, making sure that everything looks accurate and fits in.

Audience and Genre

The primary audience for our media product is late teens and adults. As the genre comes under thriller and horror it would contain dark and distressing scenes which would be inappropriate for children under 15 years of age. Similarly, the film 'The Blair Witch Project' is also rated 15 for the same reasons, as their storyline is also based on students who go into the woods, and none comeback whereas in our video their is one survivor.

Our target audience in terms of gender would be precisely both genders male and female. Our product is aimed at a niche audience because people who have a specific interest in the elements such as mystery, drama , thriller and process of the mind would have interest in the film. However, this would be a smaller audience with more unique taste, rather than the majority audience who have more interest in romantic-comedies and dramas.




The BBFC website states age certifications for films/TV; the 15 certification has many guidelines as to why only said person aged 15 or above can view films with this certificate and explains what aspects of the film make it classify as as 15, these guidelines are stated below:

Discrimination:No endorsment of discriminatory language or behaviour will be present in the film.

Drugs:In the film drugs are permitted to be viewed but in no way must they be promoted to the audience or make the audience want to experience the taking of these drugs. Also its unlikely to be acceptable to show dangerous substances that are accessible to the audience being used incorrectly, for example mis-use of aerosols or solvents.


Horror:The audience are allowed to see strong threat and menace, however not if carried out in a sexualised or sadistic way.

Imitable Behaviour:Any viewings of behaviour dangerous to the character (for example, hanging, suicide andself-harming) are not allowed to be shown in great detail to promote ideas to the audience of this behaviour.

Language:Strong language is acceptable to be used frequently, (for example 'fuck') however the stongest terms (for example 'cunt') are only permitted to used if it fits the context and can be justified by this. However when the use of strong language is repeated in an aggresive way its unlikely to be acceptable for this certification.

Nudity:Without strong detail nudity is permitted if used in sexual context, more so there are no constraints in non-sexual or educational context regarding nudity.

Sex:Without strong detail sexual activity is permitted to be portrayed; strong verbal references to sexual behaviour are also allowed. However highly strong references are again unlikely to be permitted unless they can be justified by the context of the film. More so work that is solely purposful for sexual arousal or stimulation are again unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme:There are no themes that are not allowed as long as provided with appropriate treatment for 15 year olds.

Violence:No infliction of pain or injury are allowed to be dwelled on when strong violence is used. Strong gory images and strong sadistic or sexualised violence are unlikely to be acceptable. Detailed verbal refernences to sexual violence are allowed but it must be discreet and be highly justified by the context.

Location Shots of our chosen location- Alexandra Park

As a group we specially really like the image below, this is firstly because the lighting in the middle of the pathway stands out, and it looks as if if you were to walk through the lighting at the end of the pathway , then it may take you to another world. Something as if either something good or terrible is about to happen. We thought that this would really relate to our thriller type video. Also from this image you can see the closed in trees, which present that the park is a forest type area in which we desire for the location of our video. Lastly we like how the girl(Saba) is looking towards the left, making us think that 'what was that sound', which also really relates to our video. This image is likeable because it shows the lighting, how it is really dull and heading towards darkeness. May help towards suggesting the genre of our video.

We liked this image because the boys in the image are part of our group , and one which he will be acting the 'teacher' and the other helping in being the 'camera man'. This shows that part of the group is walking towards the woods.

These are just extra image shots to show different parts of the location.

Detailed Shot List

1. Black background with red font showing the production company who made the film.


2. A long wide shot showing the teacher and the students in the forest, making the environment.


3. Medium shot of the teacher speaking to the students keeping on the right side of the camera, using the 180° rule.


4. Medium shot on the students, then tracking them as they walk through the woods to get the logs to make a fire.


5. Black background with red font showing who is starring in the film.


6. Low angle medium shot from the logs as students pick up the logs.


7. Close up of students picking up the logs.


8. Black background with red font showing the distribution company who distributed the film.


9. High angle medium shot panning on the student as they walk back to camp.


10. . Medium shot on students as the dialogue is being said about racing.


11. Low angle shot on students getting ready to race.


12. Hand held camera as one student runs ahead and gets to the camp.


13. Long shot with teacher on the right and one student on the left sticking to the 180° rule, whilst the teacher has dialogue.


14. Black background with red font showing who directed the film.


15. Close up on student giving a reaction shot of student’s expression when finding the other student isn’t with her.


16. Fast cuts and medium shots between the forest, the student and the teacher as there is a high pitch scream heard in the forest.


17. Black background with red font showing who edited the film.


18. Camera panning around the camp in a 360° angle, showing everything around and only two people there.


19. Shot reverse shot when the student and teacher decide to go and find the missing student.


20. Medium shot panning both characters as they walk into the woods.


21. Close up on student as they stop to look around and they hear a bird sound.


22. Eye line match to a low angle shot looking up at the sky and tree as they something there.


23. Medium shot of the teacher walking away as he has found a body.


24. Match cut to a close up on teacher’s foot to show he is walking towards a body.


25. Close up reaction shot on the teacher as he finds the body and says his dialogue.


26. Medium shot on the student as they hear the teacher talk to her.


27. Hand held camera as she runs to the teacher.


28. Close up reaction shot on student as she looks at the body.


29. Eye line match to a close up of the dead body of the missing student.


30. Low angle shot looking from the back of the body to the teacher and student, whilst playing horror type music.


31. Black background with red font showing the title of the film, with horror music carrying over to this shot.

Costume Pictures and analysis

We chose these sort of costumes; trainers, hoodies and jogging bottoms because we thought about the weather and the season as it is Winter. The timings we are going to be filming will be after college hours e.g 5pm. So the weather would be quite cold and cloudy. Plus we thought that it would be more appropriate to wear these sort of costumes as our film video is about a a group of 4-5 students going on a camping trip for a night in the park. So for that reason we thought we would wear warm clothing.

Animatic Storyboard

Researched Location Shots

This is an image of part of Alexandra Park, we thought that we could experiment quite alot in Alexandra Park as it is quite closed ( meaning that it's not an open space, things can be hidden, for example the dead body in our video).

These are images that were taken of Chorlton Water Park, we thought this location would have been good because nearby is the River Mersy, which would have been good to put in our video as we would have different background surroundings. However we also thought that it's not really that closed in as Alexandra Park is, it's more open and it's more of a place where families would come. Not really like a forest type as we would desire.

Chorlton Water Park has really nice scenery , as you can see in this image. However you can actually see from this image that the Water Park seems to be quite an open space .

Production Treatment

The opening of a short film: ''The Last One Standing" with the genre of thriller and horror.

Duration: 2 minutes.

Audience: Our intended audience is both male and females with the age group of 15-20.

Resume: At the beginning of our opening sequence we will show a group of students who have gone on a camping trip. However two students go to get some logs of wood for the fire, however the students remaining in the camp hear a scream.. and wonder if it was the two students who went to get wood, then once they search for the students they realise that there dead !....

Suggested Elements:

• Costumes- there are no particular costumes for our video however it will be warm clothing as it will be dark and cold in the park ( hats, gloves, hoodies etc).

• Props- logs, fire and false blood.
  

• Our location- Alexandra Park

Recording days:

It should take us approximately two days maximum to film the clips for our thriller video. This would be because we need the specific lighting e.g. sun set, then darkness.
For our post production we will take approximately 1-2weeks maximum. And we should take about 2 weeks maximum to complete our blog.

Evaluation of Preliminary task

Good points:

1. In our preliminary task video we used a variety of different shot types. At the beginning of our video we had a match cut to show the passage of time as ‘Character A’ gets to the top of the stairs, to make it more interesting.

2. We then used a high angle shot as ‘Character A’ walks through the corridor. This is useful because it’s a variety of shots to keep the video more interesting again. Plus this shot shows the slight surroundings.

3. We also used a close up of ‘Character A’ opening the door; there was a close up of his hand on the handle. We used this shot to show the audience that a different scene is about to occur.

4. A close up to an eye line match from ‘Character A’ to ‘Character B’ to show the audience what ‘Character A’ is looking at.

5. We then used a shot reverse shot of both characters to show the audience their conversation from different points.

6. We kept by the 180° degrees rule, by keeping ‘Character B’ on the left and ‘Character A’ on the right.

Bad points:

1. We noticed that throughout the video our camera showed to be blurry when the scenes were filmed.

2. A change of costume from ‘Character A’ might have distracted the audience.

3. The final panning shot was hand held and very shaky.

Preliminary task video

Analysis of the opening of the usual suspects

The Usual Suspect is a thriller genre film that appears to be detective investigation of a murder. This is shown in the scene as a character is killed.

The credits consists of a pan of the camera going over water, this is often associated with murder as frequently murders hide body's in water areas. The time of day is clear as the water is dark and lights can be seen reflecting off the surface.

After the credits we see a lighter with a close-up of a lighter which then cuts into a mid show and moves upwards as he lights his cigarette allowing us to see his facial features and clothing. He appears to be expecting someone to kill him as he is calm and relaxed when the appears on the scene later in the sequence.

We then see a key prop of a leaking barrel which appears to be leaking petrol or some other flammable material this fore shadows and explosion or major event. After the victim attempts to light a trail of the oil the camera tracks it's progress before it is stopped by the villain.

The camera at this point is at a low angle and gradually moves upwards to look at a man standing above the trail. This makes him seem powerful and he is later shown moving down the stairs by a still shot of a shadow moving downwards. This is typical of a thriller genre as it doesn't show who the is or what he looks like.

The next shot is an close up on his feet moving along the deck of the ship before it cuts to an mid-shot of his body but is still careful not to reveal the facial features of the character. He is shown to be wearing full black clothing and a trench coat. This gives the impression that he is about to commit the murder and this is later when he pulls out a pistol from his coat.

The victim seems relaxed and calm, this gives us the impression that he was expecting to be killed.

After this the camera cuts to two still shots of parts of the ship as gun shots can be heard in the distance (diegetic sound). This confirms that there has been a murder.

Opening six shots of Preliminary task

We have filmed the first six shots of our Preliminary task and begun to edit these shots. We have edited the six shots to show continuity editing as character A walks up the stairs and then walks through the corridor towards the door where character B is. We have used contunity editing to keep the viewer watching and not think that its been edited, so they dont notice the editing. Along these six shots, there are; medium shots, close ups, high angle shots and a match cut. We are now going to begin to film and edit the next final shots for the Preliminary task.

Analysis of the opening of silence of the lambs

During the opening sequence of silence of the lambs we see a young woman running through a dark and misty forest, we do not know if she is being chased or if it is for leisure but this connotes that this film maybe a thriller, we soon find out that she is running an assault course due to the obstacle’s facing her, we soon find out that she is working for the FBI due to a man wearing an FBI hat instructing her to go to see her superior, she jogs away, we can tell she is athletic by the pace she is going this connotes that she maybe strong. She runs into the FBI training facility where we see people who are at the peak of there physical ability, she enters a dark mysterious building, upon entering there are numerous FBI drills taking place whilst she walks through the building. She enters a lift with big burley men, this shows even though she is small she may have physical strength as well as mental strength, she exits the lift as there are FBI officials roaming about working. As this happens there is a close-up of a sign which we don’t know the meaning of yet, She enters one office where there are two men working, she inquires about the office of another man to which she is instructed to go into the office and wait for him. She enters the office door and walks in, the camera pans around showing part of the room. The camera then focuses on her shocked face, the camera then cuts to a wall of files and newspaper cuttings about one particular murder, we then know that she has been assigned to the case.

Preliminary task (shot list)

1. Medium long shot of character A walking up the stairs
2. Match cut, to close up of character A’s foot reaching the top of the stairs.
3. Medium shot of character at the top of the stairs, walking through the corridor.
4. Medium shot from behind Character A now walking towards the door, for where character B is.
5. Close up shot of character A opening the door and walking through the door.
6. Close up of character A’s face, showing the characters smile.
7. Eye line match from character A to a medium shot of Character B sat on a chair.
8. Medium shot as Character A walks towards a chair to sit down next to Character B.
9. Medium two shot of both characters sat down as they start to exchange a couple of lines of dialogue, showing character A on the left side of the shot and character B on the right side of the shot.
10. Over shoulder shot of character A showing character B speaking.
11. Shot reverse shot on both characters as they both speak to each other. As Character B says “Hey, have you done your homework for English?” and then Character A replies saying, “That’s what I needed to do”. Which then Character B says “Well have you got it then?” then character A replies saying, “I’m just going to print it out now. See you later.”

12. Medium shot showing character A getting out of his seat and walking to the door as the camera follows him by panning.
13. Fade to black as he leaves through the door.