Evaluation - Question 7.

Looking Back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation - 4&5

Laura Jolley, Alice Humphries, Lizzie Neal.

Evaluation - Quesiton 1

Laura Jolley

Evaluation - Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? -- Cineworld website -- Cineworld would distribute Weeping Willow because it is a film that would attract a large audience with its typical thriller conventions. The British Film Council has made this low budget film with below the radar actors and actresses to attract a mainly British audience. It would be distributed in 8 cinemas and shown on 10 screens from mid afternoon until late evening. The film is rated as a 15 so the target audience would be older teenagers or young adults. -- Laura Jolley --

Evaluation - Technology

Laura Jolley

Problem with uploading

Yesterday Alice and I put the film onto youtube and blogger but when we had finished uploading it we realised we had muted some of the sound when we were editing. This means we will have to re-upload them with all of the sound turned on.

Laura Jolley

FINISHED!!!

New Title

We had 1 second to fill in our film and this meant there wasn't any point in trying to fit a small shot in. Instead i put a new title in and an idea that i had was to have 'inspired by true events '. I thought this would go well because it will make the audience feel more nervous.

It fits perfectly and now the film is the right length and the video and the music stops at the same time.

Laura Jolley

1864 - Michael Suby

After watching an episode of The Vampire Diaries and hearing a song from the soundtrack, I had the idea that we could use one of their songs in our movie.

The song is called 1864 by Michael Suby. After downloading the soundtrack I thought this song would work in our film as it is quite creepy and gives the right atmosphere that we are trying to create.

Alice Humphries

DVD case cover/ Poster

The font used in our title page is Broken Ghost from http://www.dafont.com/search.php?psize=m&q=broken+ghost

We got our picture off of google, we spent ages trying to find a silhouette of a willow tree, all the ones we found were not what we were looking for. We kept looking and finally after trying several different word combinations i came across this sketch, but the colours were the wrong way around so with a bit of fiddling around we got the colours to invert so it would fit our poster well.


We thought this picture looked good for our DVD/Poster because the movie is about a girl called willow and the movie title is Weeping Willow, so the picture fits it perfectly because it is a picture of a female imitating a weeping willow.


Elizabeth Neal

Editing - Music

This week i have spent a lot of time cutting the clips down so they fit in our 2 minute slot. So far we have 1 minute 59 seconds of footage so we will probably fill the final second with a title.

We have been having problems deciding on what music we are going to have over the first part of the film as we all have differing opinions. Originally we were going to have the Saw theme tune over the film but most of the group were not happy with this choice as it is such a well known song from a well known thriller.

The next idea was one of Alices. She came up with '1864' from The Vampire Diaries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0bkvfXzDSI) which is quite a creepy song. This goes really well about a third of the way through the film as the masked figure starts to appear. When the overall feel of the film gets weirder this track fits completly. The problem is it doesnt go with the beginning of the film or the end. Including this song would mean we have to have 3 different songs in a 2 minute thriller which could turn out badly.

Elizabeth had the idea of another song which is 'Omen' By The Prodigy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STnzL9Rsoxw). This song is fast and could fit as the track willow is listening to on her iPod. This song doesn't fit over the masked figure scene so it would have to be cut before that started.

The problem we are having is that the 2 songs go well with 2 different parts but they are such different songs they don't fit together well. We have tried stopping Omen and fading in 1864 underneath but because of the different beats per minute it doesn't work. What we would really like would be a song that fits all the way through but because there are so many different parts to the film one song wont go with all of it.

Another option we have is to have Mad World by Gary Jules over the whole film but I'm not sure if have the right atmosphere. This song is very slow and toned down and would give the film more of a sad feel to it which isn't what we want.

Laura Jolley

Georgina leaving the group

On the 7th February Georgina decided she didnt want to take media as an AS level anymore. This means she is no longer in our group and we will have to cover the work she would have been doing between the three of us. With a week and 3 days until the deadline its going to make it even harder to get it done in time. This could make it easier though becasue we all had different views on how we wanted the film.

Laura Jolley

Editing - 1st & 2nd February.

On the 1st and 2nd February I have started editing. Firstly I had to import the clips from the hard drive camera onto the Mac and then put them into the project in Premier Pro. The first problem i had was that the Mac we were using wasnt working properly and after some help from the ICT Technician he recommended that I moved onto a different Mac. This meant starting over again but all we had done so far was imported the film onto the computer.

I started again and re-imported the footage then spent a few hours getting the clips in the right order and deleting the things we didnt need. I have made considerable progress in the time ive spent and now everything is in the right order we have around 2 minutes 30 seconds of footage. Im feeling positive and when i spend some more time editing it and cutting down the clips im sure it will fit perfectly.

I have done a lot of work on the end scene of our thriller which is Alice handing out missing posters. It is all in the right order and i have used some dip to black transitions between shots. This makes it flow very nicely and seeing as the last part of the film is going to have slower, sad music these transitions will help to make it have a calmer atmosphere to fit with the mood. After listening to a few different songs i think i will use 'Mad World' as this one fits best.

Laura Jolley

Song Ideas for after titles

After the titles of our thriller we are going to have some shots of Alice handing out missing posters. I think it would be suitable to have a different sound track over this part of the film. To go with the mood I was thinking of a sad song, and some ideas I have come up with are -

- Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton.

- Everybody Hurts, REM.

- Mad World, Gary Jules.

I think these songs will portray the right kind of atmosphere that we are trying to get across.

Laura Jolley

Filming Attempt #5

On the 1st February the whole group managed to go filming. It was the first time we had all been there and it went really well. We got a Taxi from school which cost £10.50 from Halstead Cars and were filming for around 2 hours. We started the filming again because we were worried about the continuety and followed the storyboard carefully. I played the character of Willow again just in case we needed to use some of the earlier shots. Lizzie was dressed as a masked character but as there was only one mask we could only have one masked person. We changed a few shots so we could build our story around this, such as when we were going to have a 180 degree rule of the masked people in a circle. Instead of this shot I had an idea of putting 6 red candles in a circle on the floor with a larger one in the middle. This shot looked really effective and will be used in our film.

Also before we left for filming me and Lizzie got some shots of Alice putting missing posters up for the end scene after the credits.

Hopefully this will be all of the filming that we need and we can finish the editing in time.

Laura Jolley

Missing Posters

Today we were trying to think of a way to bulk out our filming, we came up with some ideas.

The first was to show the scenery of where the village was based, we thought this may be a good idea as it give some background information of the area, showing that it is a middle of nowhere town .

The second was to put a scene from two days before, with "Willow Emmerson" driving, but then we didn't see the connection between her driving and then going into the woods running, so we thought it wouldn't look right.

Then we came up with the idea of missing peoples posters. We could make several missing peoples posters, put them up onto a board, so it shows Willow is not the first girl to go missing. We made up some posters in one of our frees, we used pictures from google of actual missing girls. We thought this shot of all the missing posters will give a slightly eerie feel to the area, especially with the posters we crumpled up to make them look slightly older (so it's being going on for years). Now we have a shot of another girl, going upto a board putting "Willow" a missing poster up, as well as her putting more up around the school.

Elizabeth Neal

Timetable

I have made two timetables showing all of the groups free periods and all of out media lessons. By using this we will be able to work out when we can film during the day.

Alice Humphries

Filming Attempt #4

We are hoping to be able to continue filming tomorrow (1st February). All members of our group have are free period 5, so we can leave school at lunchtime, and hopefully get the rest of the filming done. We may have to get a taxi from school to Parks farm, which would cost £10, or £2.50 each.

Alice Humphries

Questionaire Results

I have put the information i gathered from the questionaire about thriller films into a chart so you can see it clearly.

Laura Jolley

Filming Attempt #3

On the 23rd January we had planned to film again and get the final shots for the coursework. Georgina couldn't come because she was working and didn't have time to get there. Alice, Lizzie and myself were planning on meeting at 9-am in the Parks Farm woods but on the morning of the filming Lizzie wasn't well. Alice was being picked up by her so this meant she couldn't get there either. As I had the camera, I decided to go to the woods alone and get the few shots that I could. I was in the woods for around an hour and got several different shots. I had a few attempts at our final shots of the shoes in different places, I got some point of view shots, worms eye view shots and other random shots of things that we might be able to use in the film.

The deadline is becoming nearer and we are going to run out of time to get everything done as every time we try and film somebody cant get there. So far Lizzie hasn't done any filming and we haven't got much done.

Laura Jolley

Ideas for The film

I also had an idea for the end of the film. After the credits there can be one final shot with titles saying '2 days earlier' at the bottom. Willow gets in a car, starts the ignition and tuns the radio on. This will look like the beginning of the film and will make the audience want to carry on watching. My Dad has a green MGB GT which i think would be perfect for this shot as it is a classic car and sounds brilliant when the ignition turns on.

I did get some shots of this idea when i was filming on sunday. Willow got into the car, turned on the radio to Pink Floyd - We Don't Need No Education ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwTpZpwjtIE ) and started the ignition. Because I was trying to film myself on my own, the camera is on the dashboard and it is just a still shot. It would have looked better if the camera had moved and zoomed in but this wasn't possible. If it will contribute to our film dramatically then we can re-film this at a later date.

My thinking behind the Pink Floyd song was because the car Willow is driving is an 80's style car it looked better with some old classic music. Also I thought about the target audience and most people in our target market will know and/or like this song. I think if a film starts off with a good song it draws you in more.

Laura Jolley

What Are The Typical Characteristics of a Thriller Movie?

A thriller is a film that provides thrills and keeps the audience "on the edge of their seats" as the plot drives towards a climax. the tension usually arises when the characters are places in a menacing situation.

Thrillers usually take place in ordinary suburbs/cities, though sometimes they take place in exotic settings like foreign cities, deserts, polar regions or the high seas. The heroes in most thrillers are frequently ordinary citezens unaccustomed to danger. However, more common in crime thrillers, they may also be "hard men" accustomed to danger, like police officers or detectives. While such heroes have typically been men, female heroes are becoming increasingly popular.

Thrillers often overlap with mystery stories but are distinguished by the structure of their plots. In a thriller, the hero must thwart the plans of an enemy rather than uncover a crime that has already happened. While a murder mystery would be spoiled by a premature disclosure of the murderer's identity, in a thriller the identity of a murderer or other villain is typically known all along. Thrillers also occur on a much grander scale: the crimes that must be prevented are serial or mass murder, terrorism, assassination, or the overthrow of governments. Jeopardy and violent confrontations are standard plot elements. While a mystery climaxes when the mystery is solved, a thriller climaxes when the hero finally defeats the villain, saving his own life and often the lives of others. In thrillers influenced by film noir and tragedy, the compromised hero is often killed in the process.

In recent years, thrillers have been slightly influenced by the horror genre; they have more gore/sadistic violence, brutality, terror, and body counts. Eg- Eden Lake.

Alice Humphries

Masked people's setting -- Laura's Loft

An idea i had for a location in our thriller was the loft in my house. The masked characters could have this as their 'den' and there could be a shot with around 5 sitting in here with candles and very low lighting. This could also be where Willow is died up at the end when she is gagged. We could also drape material over the eves to make it look smaller and scatter litter on the floor so it looks like they are squatting there.

A problem with this is that I am moving house in a week's time and if we cannot film there this weekend we will not be able to. We could use any loft but this one is empty which will look better.

Laura Jolley

Masked figures-protectors of the forests

Today when we were filming, I came up with a few ideas of the background of the masked people. Because we don't know why or what they're doing there, I thought of giving them a reason for being there and doing what they're doing. Many thriller's have cults which show and also represent the whole background and reasoning to the film. Then I thought the woods could belong to the goddess Artemis also known as the Lady of the Beast, who is the Greek goddess of nature, whom before the God of War, she was the most feared God of all, as she manipulated the weather to destroy her enemies and cause pain to all living creatures. Artemesians have been following her for thousands of years, trying to keep her memory alive and trying to live on her traditions and rules. Although recently there have been less and less followers, some are still believed to be alive and living. These rare few still keep the traditions by believeing that no human should pass across they're beloved Artemis' grounds; the woods, the forests and the parks of world. Men were dismissed as a 'peace offering' to the world, these killers thought that leaving one gender to live was good enough, but if a woman so much as dare to walk through, the consequences were drastic. A rare few have lived to tell the tale.

Elizabeth Neal

Questionaire--

I have composed a questionaire about different aspects of thrillers for people in the media class and anyone involved in media to fill out. This will show us what different peoples views are on what thriller films should include. As these people are going to be the audience it matters to us what they think as we want them to enjoy watching it.

Laura Jolley

Photos From Filming Attempt #2

Alice Humphries

Character Profile of Willow Emmerson

Willow Emerson is our main character, based on an innocent teenage jogger.

Willow Emerson is 20 and a true sport fanatic. Willow joined a rowing club when she was 9 years old and has progressed to a high level at the age of 20, whilst still going strong. Not only rowing, she also runs everyday, different routes, different lengths of time and different running grounds. She lives in the heart of the country where the community is close and everyone knows everything about everyone. Her parents were eagerly into sport too, and so the competitive, determined streak rubbed off on Willow.

Her family background is complicated, she was extremely close to both parents; Ava and Ethan Emerson. As she was an only child, she was always the centre of attention but never spoilt. At the tender age of 18, she lost her parents to what the police called a freak 'joint suicide', it took many months for Willow to come to terms with this and even later to convince herself that there was no way her parents would leave her in such a way. From the age of 18 until now, she has been researching the woods where they were found and trying to keep their memory alive. As she was 18 when her parents were sadly taken from her, she legally allowed to live by herself with benefits from the government. She lives by herself in their grand family home, and dedicates her life to her parents, she knew deep down the reason behind their death was more dark than anyone was letting on.

Laura Jolley, Alice Humphries and Elizabeth Neal

Filming Attempt #2

Yesterday (8th Janurary 2010) we finally began filming. Unfortunately, the person we were planning to use as our actress failed to turn up again, so we decided to use Laura Jolley instead, who is a member of our group. Although this means that we may have to change the storyboard slightly so we have more scenes without Willow in them for Laura to film, this will make it easier for us in the long run as we won't have to rely on anyone else to get our filming done.

Alice Humphries

Filming Attempt #1

Originally we planned to film on Monday 3rd Janurary, but due to our actress having prior engagments we had to postpone until Saturday 8th Janurary.

Alice Humphries