Main Task

Preliminary Task

Un-used Scene

Question 1 - Media Conventions

All 3 in the group are fans of horror films, in our main task i think we combined all of our knowledge on the things we saw in horror films, techniques and mis en scene and put together a piece of film which includes most of the elements a horror needs.
Our movie began simple however throughout i personally believe it picked up pace, the techniques and filming done came together after a lot of hard work.
At the beginning of the P.O.V shot it shows the person looking around however this quickly turns into the character running, stumbling and then falling, the way the film picks up speed and then slows back down.
When planning we had scenes planned which we thought may break the 180 degree rule however when it came to executing it, the rooms we chose where small and darkened out, so in the end we weren't going to break the rule.
Horror movies now are differ heavily from what they used to be, lots of old horror films tend to focus more on eeriness and mystery, however many horrors these days are very fast paced and loud. in our main piece we added a bit of both, the eeriness and the quietness in the dark and then the bang of the chairs flying, the pace with the P.O.V scene, so all in all i feel we developed conventions and used many different techniques and pieced them together well.

Question 2 - Stereotypes of an Asian Man

In this question we are looking at the stereotypes of an asian man in media, due to attacks on America and London in the general media there are harsh stereotypes on asian men, I personally have seen enough of this as i am a British born Pakistani, Extremists, Terrorists and association with such groups are now in the narrow minds of many citizens who beleive we are all of the same kind. Personally i despise people where involved in the attacks on America and London, due to them many think of us the same, stereotypes that we are all extreme, that we all are in favour of the damage and precious lives that where taken.
In 2011 a movie was released called My Name is Khan, this movie i personally beleive did alot for muslims as it was a movie made on the events of 9/11 and involved the hardships of a muslim living in the United States and how he strived even at times of hardship to help others.

This movie included the attitudes of people before and after the events of 9/11, the dramatic difference and a muslims reaction towards people even after he was treated like he was dirt.
Films like this show how muslims asian men do not all fit under the hasty stereotype in many minds.
in our piece of film we don't touch on any of this as its an opening to a horror, i personally feel it shows  a complete different side to asians teenagers, we have not created a piece that when spoken of people would think its of us to have created. The one link between our main piece and My Name is Khan is in the movie, the main actor, Sharukh Khan has autism, many people in the film mistake this and this he has something wrong with him, the difference is in our main piece the possession the character is under is not fully explained.

Question 3 - Distribution of out Final Piece

When we began planning for our media piece, we first intended to create an action opening involving crime yet to execute that would be very difficult and some of the props needed would be very hard to get ahold of and prepare, we settled on horror because we felt that if we filmed a horror opening we could include all the various camera angles and be doing something a bit different.
This film would appeal to people who clearly, enjoy horror films. There are two types of horror films, the type that include more gore and things that make people cringe and scared but the type we aimed for is phycologically twisted, the type of horror where the supernatural happenings are never fully described, when i go to cinema to watch a horror these are the horrors i prefer, if you cant handle them they can mess with your head for a long time after so id advise against it.

Movie distribution companies take on the responsibility of releasing film to either cinemas of for home viewing, a distribution company can either do this directly or indirectly, if they own the cinema/theatre then they may do it through that. Movie distribution is a very expensive and taxing process, some even say that the distribution part of a new film is harder than making the movie itself. Having big people involved, big company names backing a movie helps securing a good deal with distribution of a film as this is a very expensive cost.

The names listed below are distributors of many genres including horror, Tales from the dark side, Friday the 13th, these are horror films released by Paramount, Chamber of horrors, Little shop of horrors are horror films released by Warner Brother, Season of the witch and The rite are horror films released by Columbia pictures.
Friday the 13th is a really good film in my opinion and therefore if i was to chose one of the distributing companies below to distribute the film we made i would chose Paramount Pictures distribution.
Some of the big names in distribution in the are :

• Paramount Pictures
• Warner Brothers 
• Columbia Pictures

Question 4 - Video Interviews

These are our film interviews were we were asking people generally about themselves but also about the type of film they may be interested in, the general questions at the beginning where to get a hint as to what they may like and then we asked them about horror so we could get their thoughts on it and get a better idea of who we are aiming at with out main task.

Both candidates number 2 and 3 i think would would not jus watch horror but appreciate horror as they both love film and don't just watch a film but really break it down and appreciate each aspect of it, i could tell this by the way they answered the questions within the interview.

Question 5 - Poster Comparison

This poster is of the well known Paranormal Activity, the reason we chose to do a poster is because a member of our group was already very experienced at using the Photo Shop programme on the Mac and with that we could create something of a good quality.

The reason i chose this is firstly i am a fan of the Paranormal Activity films, the way they are made and also the story and the fact you have to piece together bits on your own, because we only had a 2 minute slot to make an opening in we couldn't make it seem like a whole story or we would be cramming to much into a small slot however i would have grasped the opportunity and done lots more with it if we were given a longer slot.

Paranormal being filmed with a handheld camera, the disturbances and the time constantly on screen gives a great effect.

The cover of the movie immediately with the red writing on black background stands out and then the eery blue image just tops the cover off perfectly in my opinion.

This is the poster one of the members of the group created, as you can see we used a similar colour scheme to the cover of Paranormal Activity. The face is mine in the image ( Kaisir Yousef ) the woods were added into the background from the P.O.V scene i filmed. 

Question 6 - Video Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtohE-mYJ9M

Evaluation Question Number 7

In this question i am going to describe the learning process from the preliminary task to the main end piece we crated, how we became more and more familiar with the equipment we were using and the rules of filming and managed to create a high quality end product.

In this question i am going to cover:

• Knowledge of Camera Angles
• Use of the Tripods and Cameras
• Use of the Apple Mac Computers

Knowledge of Camera Angles:

At the very begining of making film, i did not know my way around a Mac, the Mac's are much more advanced and until trying things and making mistakes i did not know much, I-Movie is the main movie making programme on the Mac computers, this alone seemed very complex, in the group however we all had strong and weak abilities on them so we where able to help eachother to the knowledge to then create a good pece of film.
At the begining of creating the main poece we as a group were all under the impression that we were making a movie trailer and determined to make a great pece so we set about filming many different scenes to put together as a trailer, it was at a good time we clarified that it was an opening we were flming for and had many scenes which we didn't use because we didnt need them, however for effect we had filmed from many angles and veiwpoints which we had learned about, then scrapped the scenes we didnt use and filmed relevant scenes with the knowledge of the same angles.

The 180 degree rule is one which i beleive we broke at first when not fully understanding it, before we did any filming we did study all angles and put them to the test. Due to our piece being about phycologically disturbed mind, at most points there was only one person in the camera shot, (Jamal) the main charachter played by myself (Kaisir Yousef). However this rule helped us create a real sense of space, as most scenes where of the main character in agitation and panic, this rule gave the edge that the location and were the scene was set is the only place the character had to be and move around in, and also this being a media convention we simply could not break it.

P.O.V shot is a shot which we did with great planning although it is a simple scene to film, we wanted a certain affect, we did the scene and at the begining we started off slow and then sped up to give the effect of the person being chased, the slow part we intended to give a sense of place but a sense of uncomfort at the same time, we filmed this in a wooded area which was a very different location to the other scenes as they where filmed in small couped areas, despite this we still managed to create a sense of panic even though the area was outside.

Close Ups and Mid Shots helped us also create the same sence of a small area, the camera was still however the character was moving back and forth whcih gives the audience the impressiont that the onli place the character has to move is back and forth a few feet away from the camera.

Tripods and Cameras


The trpods are basic extendable balanced stands whcih allow the camera to be stationary, theyre where many adjustable screws and nobs on the tripods we used however it is clear which part extends what area of the tripod.
The cameras had both functions firstly recording and secondly to be able to take still pctures, they are basic to use yet provide quite a high quality of recording.

I had basic experience of using a handheld camera before i started the A-Level media course however using a camera to film and puttin the knowledge of various angles together with the filming is different, and when creating a movie you understand that the small movements you may have in just a recording are not acceptable. For most scenes we were able to use a tripod whch enabled the camera to be stationary and for the person filming it allowed them to move it if and when neccesary. As you create pieces of film though you begin to realise a tripod is not always helpful and not always used, for certain angles for instance the tripod may not be high enough which is one of the problems we faced while filming our media piece, when you use the camera freehand you understand how stll you must keep your hand and the slightest movement could mean having to refilm a scene, which we also experienced a number of times.

Apple Mac Computers

I-Movie is the main programme on the Mac computer which we used to create our piece of film however there are many other aspects which came from different edditing programmes on the Mac's, When you click record and pause on the cameras, each time u stop recording the bit recorded s a clip and once uploaded to I-Movie on the Mac this is clear, the process of cutting and trimming clips is very easy and the clips which you would like to make your film out of get added to a seperate secton nemed project (the name of the project) once everything is in the section that u would like to keep you are then able to add slide transitions etc.
After effects is also something that we discovered and added to our final piece to make it look more proffesional, its an entrance were you can write in different text and many different effects the production companies name, the characters names and the movie title for instance, there are many different effects to chose from as every film would have a different theme.
For those who watch of have seen horrors we all know that the music in these films add to the effect and have a big hand in how scary something is, so after all the scenes were filmed and put together in a project, we made a subtle yet freaky piece of music also on the Mac using a different software called Logic Pro 9, A member of the group who was good at using this programme created an eery piece of music with a violoin in the back which really added to helping atain the audiences attention and added to how scary it was.

Still images of the filming locations

This is the scenes of Jamal brother walking to meet the doctor, this was filmed in Brooke's University.

This is also the same scene as the image before but we varied the camera angles as he was walking.












This is the P.O.V scene which was filmed in south park.





This is a drama room within Cheney school which we used to film most of the strange action.

This was the room in which Jamal's brother met the doctor, this was in Brooke's University.












This was one of the corridors used to get to the room, also in Brooke's University.






This is a corridor also in Brooke's University when the brother of the main character walks up.