Denotation:
-priest pacing through church
-calm music in the background
-music escalates
-nativity set in flames
-fire
-satanic images
Connotation
The priest pacing through the church and the beginning connotes the calm and saintliness of the church and of christianity, and the calm music accentuates this. The music and the nativity set bursting into flames is a contrast to this and connoyes the destruction of a dominant western religion. The flames are an image associated with danger and death and therefore are one of the most powerfull images in the product. The statanic images connote Devil worship and Satanism which always strikes fear in to the hearts of god fearing people and even those who do not believe in God and the Devil. Satan is a prime symbol of evil, death, fear and everything else bad.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Evaluation
IN WHAT WAY DOES YOU’RE PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
Our media product: Revelations 2009 directed by Millie Driver is a 2 minute opening sequence to a 90 minute independent feature film in the genre of horror. It follows classic horror themes such as Satanism, the establishment of cults, and the possibility of the birth of the anti-Christ. The sequence involves a priest pacing slowly down the front of a church as a nun sings ‘Silent Night.’ He passes in front of a wooden nativity set which subsequently bursts into flame spontaneously. This is followed by a title sequence in which we see close ups of the burning nativity figures, satanic imagery and defaced pictures of the protagonist. While this is happening the lyrics of silent night become twisted and satanic referencing the birth of Satan’s child and the end of the world.
This opening leads to a narrative that a young women moves to a small community, wary of outsiders. Following this there is a series of inexplicable, supernatural events leading to a climax of overt Satanism, insanity and apocalyptic circumstances.
Our opening sequence follows principle horror conventions such as: isolated locations, inanimate objects possessed with strange forces, devil worship and satanic abuse, fear and political commentary. We used two isolated locations; a church and a cellar. This causes a feeling of seclusion helplessness, and claustrophobia within the audience and, although this isn’t a terrifying prospect, it makes the demographic feel slightly uncomfortable using phobia generation which is what we are aiming to do with this subtle style of psychological horror. The notion of inanimate objects which are beyond the control of humans has a similar effect. We use this to our advantage by making a nativity set seemingly combust spontaneously; the flames also keep the audience on the edge as it is an image associated with danger and death. Devil worship and Satanism always strikes terror in to the hearts of god fearing people and even those who do not believe in God and the Devil. Satan is the prime symbol of evil, death, fear and everything else bad and is therefore one of he strongest horror conventions around. Our product is centred predominantly around the idea of the return of Satan to earth in the form of the anti-Christ. We use political commentary to our advantage by showing Satanism replacing a dominant religion to emphasise the importance of religion within our culture. We achieve this by starting our sequence in a Christian church and gradually symbolise the uprising of Satanism in the church.
We took inspiration from a few films which helped us achieve our final product, these include: The Wicker Man 1973 (directed by Robin Hardy) which influenced a great deal of the shots with fire, religious iconography and also the overall narrative. Although there are similarities within the two narratives we see Revelations more as homage to ‘The Wicker Man’ rather than duplication because we wanted to refer back to the original representation cults and British mythology shown in the original and not the 2006 remake. In the shots from the cellar we were influenced by films like ‘The Descent’ 2005 (directed by Neil Marshall), which centre on claustrophobia, and ‘Steven King’s IT’ 1990 (directed by Tommy Lee Wallace) which is all about using people’s phobias to your advantage. More obviously, we drew from ‘The Omen’ 1976/2006 (directed by Richard Donner/ John Moore) seeing as our film is predominantly about the anti-Christ.
The social groups our product represents include middle aged/old, white European men and women. In terms of class, the location for our product operates outside a traditional class system in which a hierarchy operates where religion is all powerful and a priest is a representation of that.
We represented these social groups through dress, tone of voice, behavior and movement, and appearance. We dressed both characters fairly ambiguously, they were in all black, and this conveyed a lack of class system and made everyone seem more equal. Also the outfits were clearly recognizable as catholic garments which set the tone and gave an impression of the character. In the ‘voice over’ of silent night the tone of voice is very innocent, and it is also a women’s voice which ties in with the ideology of female victims. Like the film, the song starts innocently, as a well known Christmas hymn, but this is contradicted by the lyrics of the second and third verse which become much darker and reference events of relentless evil. This creates a paradox which can make the demographic feel perturbed. In terms of movement and behavior, we set the pace fairly slow at the beginning with the priest walking down the aisle of the church but then create a contrast with the rapid ignition of the nativity set and the energetic movement of the flames. This causes a juxtaposition within the images which uses tension and release to create an effective piece of horror. The appearance of the priest was initially intended to be older, but since we were unable to secure a mature actor, we had to film him in long shots so as not to emphasize his youth.
Although the priest appears on the surface to be a stereotype, we challenge this by making him a priest of Satan and an embodiment of evil. In contrast to the way we shot the priest, in long and wide shots, we shot the nativity figures in extreme close up to emphasis the importance of the figures. We wanted to make a clear statement to the audience about the destruction of Christianity by making the figures clearly recognizable. In order the further challenge the representation of the priest we talked about stressing the fact that he was evil by having shots of him in traditional garments but holding a severed goats head drenched in blood on a silver plate. Unfortunately health and safety restrictions prevented us from doing this.
WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
Our media product is an independent, low budget feature and is likely to be distributed by institutions like ‘Arrow Films’, ‘Hammer Films’ or ‘Axiom Films’. The reasons for this categorization include the fact that we had an unknown cast, low budget sets/established locations, no distribution deal, and expertise was all done within the production company - except the soundtrack. In order to bring our product into a different category, we could bring in more outside expertise such as stunt coordinators, guest directors, and film crews amongst others. We could also create more elaborate and expensive sets and bring in some nig name actors. This would take the product into the category of high budget independent feature due to increased budget.
It is most likely that the UK would be the most appropriate market for our product seeing as it is an English language film; it is centered on the collapse of a western religion, and the fact that there is a secularization of society and the sense that institutional religion is seen as being undercut in our film. The US would not be an appropriate market due to the fact that some states are overly religious and may take extreme offence after watching our feature. The institution which would be most suitable for distributing our film is ‘Hammer Films’, a British production company known for its low-budget, gothic horror feature films.
WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?
In terms of standard marketing, through an advertising company, we could work on teaser campaigns which highlight a certain character/symbol from our film which becomes more and more prominent as the release date nears. We would make trailers and posters to promote the product and develop slogans and images/logos that people will associate with the film. A more suitable method of promotion for our product would be viral marketing because it is extremely cheap and potentially more effective than standard marketing. We could set up websites based around principle characters, which give more and more information about the character as more people subscribe to the website. Also we could organize flash mobs along the themes of our product, although acts of overt Satanism in public places may cause offence. We could obtain local coverage by, for example, placing a severed goats head in the middle of the road in the same place, at the same time every week. Despite potentially being illegal, this would get exposure from local news channels and therefore raise awareness of the film.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING YOUR PRODUCT?
On our media shoot we used a JVC camera. When using this, I learnt to focus the camera, alter the white balance and change the exposure to obtain a professional looking shot. I also leant about the rule of thirds, and other techniques which helped me construct an effective mise en scene. When filming in the church we used a spider track and dolly, when using this I learned the importance of making sure the track is straight and how the tiniest kink in the track can have a dramatic effect on the final shot.
When it came to editing our product, we used ‘Final Cut Pro’, a professional editing software application from Apple Inc. We learnt how to construct bin and log film to group shots into appropriate divisions. We used the drag and drop facility to add various clips to the time line and used the razor tool to cut and edit the clips so they fitted together in a coherent, chronological order. After we had the final cut of our product we started to add effects and transitions. The main transitions we used were ‘cross dissolve’ and ‘fade in fade out dissolve’. To add effects we use a ‘bloom’ effect to change the colour contrast and brightness of the images which gave us the effective flash of fire across the screen in the title sequence. We also used the ‘Colour Key’ tool to impose images behind the flames.
For the soundtrack we listened to some un-copyrighted sound/songs on various DVDs and picked two songs and a fireball sound effect which worked well with our product, we then added them to our product on Final Cut Pro. Although this wasn’t our original idea for soundtrack, it is still effective.
As a result of all this practice I now feel very confident when using Final Cut Pro and feel I could, and would want to, happily edit a longer more complicated piece of film.
Since my preliminary task, I have learnt about the importance of organization when making a film. We spent a great deal of time trying to secure locations, writing risk assessments, obtaining actors and providing various contracts. Although this was, at times, very arduous, I did enjoy it and it made me consider a career in film production. Research also proved very useful, before starting work on our product I watched a great deal of classic horror films and read interviews with director ect. and this was very helpful when it came to analyzing what made a horror film scary and how to exploit fear. As a result of all this research I found it easier to write the script and I managed to produce, in my opinion, a good quality script. We learnt how to storyboard and how helpful this was when we came to filming, as it gave us a clear indication of the exact shots we needed.
We learnt importance of company formation and how imperative it was that we kept a good working relationship with the other people in the production company to minimize conflict and disagreements. On the shoot day I felt I achieved a lot as an individual. I helped set up the lighting and learnt about three-point lighting. I also operated the camera for the tracking and panning shot.
In terms of editing, my contribution was more than substantial. I managed to put together most of the final cut as well as add a lot of the effects and credits. I learnt how important it is to work as a team, unfortunately I learnt this the hard way. Just days from the final deadline, we were let down by a member of our team who had failed their task of recording the soundtrack. We had to completely re-do the music and it wasn’t as effective as it could have potentially been.
If I went back and did this again I would do a number of things differently. I would take more time planning and make sure everything was completely ready before filming to reduce the risk of mistakes/problems. I would also spend more time editing because I think our final product had the potential to flow better, I would have liked to go back and just smooth out a few glitches. Finally, I would have devised a way to make sure each group member was pulling their weight and achieving everything they were tasked with.
This opportunity has really given me an insight into the world of film and has made me feel even more enthusiastic about pursuing a career in media.
Our media product: Revelations 2009 directed by Millie Driver is a 2 minute opening sequence to a 90 minute independent feature film in the genre of horror. It follows classic horror themes such as Satanism, the establishment of cults, and the possibility of the birth of the anti-Christ. The sequence involves a priest pacing slowly down the front of a church as a nun sings ‘Silent Night.’ He passes in front of a wooden nativity set which subsequently bursts into flame spontaneously. This is followed by a title sequence in which we see close ups of the burning nativity figures, satanic imagery and defaced pictures of the protagonist. While this is happening the lyrics of silent night become twisted and satanic referencing the birth of Satan’s child and the end of the world.
This opening leads to a narrative that a young women moves to a small community, wary of outsiders. Following this there is a series of inexplicable, supernatural events leading to a climax of overt Satanism, insanity and apocalyptic circumstances.
Our opening sequence follows principle horror conventions such as: isolated locations, inanimate objects possessed with strange forces, devil worship and satanic abuse, fear and political commentary. We used two isolated locations; a church and a cellar. This causes a feeling of seclusion helplessness, and claustrophobia within the audience and, although this isn’t a terrifying prospect, it makes the demographic feel slightly uncomfortable using phobia generation which is what we are aiming to do with this subtle style of psychological horror. The notion of inanimate objects which are beyond the control of humans has a similar effect. We use this to our advantage by making a nativity set seemingly combust spontaneously; the flames also keep the audience on the edge as it is an image associated with danger and death. Devil worship and Satanism always strikes terror in to the hearts of god fearing people and even those who do not believe in God and the Devil. Satan is the prime symbol of evil, death, fear and everything else bad and is therefore one of he strongest horror conventions around. Our product is centred predominantly around the idea of the return of Satan to earth in the form of the anti-Christ. We use political commentary to our advantage by showing Satanism replacing a dominant religion to emphasise the importance of religion within our culture. We achieve this by starting our sequence in a Christian church and gradually symbolise the uprising of Satanism in the church.
We took inspiration from a few films which helped us achieve our final product, these include: The Wicker Man 1973 (directed by Robin Hardy) which influenced a great deal of the shots with fire, religious iconography and also the overall narrative. Although there are similarities within the two narratives we see Revelations more as homage to ‘The Wicker Man’ rather than duplication because we wanted to refer back to the original representation cults and British mythology shown in the original and not the 2006 remake. In the shots from the cellar we were influenced by films like ‘The Descent’ 2005 (directed by Neil Marshall), which centre on claustrophobia, and ‘Steven King’s IT’ 1990 (directed by Tommy Lee Wallace) which is all about using people’s phobias to your advantage. More obviously, we drew from ‘The Omen’ 1976/2006 (directed by Richard Donner/ John Moore) seeing as our film is predominantly about the anti-Christ.
HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT SOCIAL GROUPS
The social groups our product represents include middle aged/old, white European men and women. In terms of class, the location for our product operates outside a traditional class system in which a hierarchy operates where religion is all powerful and a priest is a representation of that.
We represented these social groups through dress, tone of voice, behavior and movement, and appearance. We dressed both characters fairly ambiguously, they were in all black, and this conveyed a lack of class system and made everyone seem more equal. Also the outfits were clearly recognizable as catholic garments which set the tone and gave an impression of the character. In the ‘voice over’ of silent night the tone of voice is very innocent, and it is also a women’s voice which ties in with the ideology of female victims. Like the film, the song starts innocently, as a well known Christmas hymn, but this is contradicted by the lyrics of the second and third verse which become much darker and reference events of relentless evil. This creates a paradox which can make the demographic feel perturbed. In terms of movement and behavior, we set the pace fairly slow at the beginning with the priest walking down the aisle of the church but then create a contrast with the rapid ignition of the nativity set and the energetic movement of the flames. This causes a juxtaposition within the images which uses tension and release to create an effective piece of horror. The appearance of the priest was initially intended to be older, but since we were unable to secure a mature actor, we had to film him in long shots so as not to emphasize his youth.
Although the priest appears on the surface to be a stereotype, we challenge this by making him a priest of Satan and an embodiment of evil. In contrast to the way we shot the priest, in long and wide shots, we shot the nativity figures in extreme close up to emphasis the importance of the figures. We wanted to make a clear statement to the audience about the destruction of Christianity by making the figures clearly recognizable. In order the further challenge the representation of the priest we talked about stressing the fact that he was evil by having shots of him in traditional garments but holding a severed goats head drenched in blood on a silver plate. Unfortunately health and safety restrictions prevented us from doing this.
WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
Our media product is an independent, low budget feature and is likely to be distributed by institutions like ‘Arrow Films’, ‘Hammer Films’ or ‘Axiom Films’. The reasons for this categorization include the fact that we had an unknown cast, low budget sets/established locations, no distribution deal, and expertise was all done within the production company - except the soundtrack. In order to bring our product into a different category, we could bring in more outside expertise such as stunt coordinators, guest directors, and film crews amongst others. We could also create more elaborate and expensive sets and bring in some nig name actors. This would take the product into the category of high budget independent feature due to increased budget.
It is most likely that the UK would be the most appropriate market for our product seeing as it is an English language film; it is centered on the collapse of a western religion, and the fact that there is a secularization of society and the sense that institutional religion is seen as being undercut in our film. The US would not be an appropriate market due to the fact that some states are overly religious and may take extreme offence after watching our feature. The institution which would be most suitable for distributing our film is ‘Hammer Films’, a British production company known for its low-budget, gothic horror feature films.
WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?
Our media product would be a certificate 15 film due to the probability of frequent, strong language, violence and the use of strong threat and menace. Our film would apply mainly to demographic C2 and above primarily because it is a more psychological and subtle style of horror, rather than a blunt, gory zombie or slasher film. The nest time of year to release this film would be the 6th July to tie in with the satanic themes; ideally we would release it in the year 2016 or any other year with a six in it. To carry on the theme of 666, we would release it on DVD six months after it came out at the cinema. Since it is a low budget feature, it will have a very limited run at the cinema so leaving it any longer to release on DVD would be pointless.
I would think our product, if released and if successful, would make between £500,000 and £1,000,000 revenue. The reasons for this include the fact that it has low distribution costs, which means limited advertising and therefore limited awareness. Also low budget films are never expected to make a killing at the box office.
HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
I would think our product, if released and if successful, would make between £500,000 and £1,000,000 revenue. The reasons for this include the fact that it has low distribution costs, which means limited advertising and therefore limited awareness. Also low budget films are never expected to make a killing at the box office.
HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
In terms of standard marketing, through an advertising company, we could work on teaser campaigns which highlight a certain character/symbol from our film which becomes more and more prominent as the release date nears. We would make trailers and posters to promote the product and develop slogans and images/logos that people will associate with the film. A more suitable method of promotion for our product would be viral marketing because it is extremely cheap and potentially more effective than standard marketing. We could set up websites based around principle characters, which give more and more information about the character as more people subscribe to the website. Also we could organize flash mobs along the themes of our product, although acts of overt Satanism in public places may cause offence. We could obtain local coverage by, for example, placing a severed goats head in the middle of the road in the same place, at the same time every week. Despite potentially being illegal, this would get exposure from local news channels and therefore raise awareness of the film.
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING YOUR PRODUCT?
On our media shoot we used a JVC camera. When using this, I learnt to focus the camera, alter the white balance and change the exposure to obtain a professional looking shot. I also leant about the rule of thirds, and other techniques which helped me construct an effective mise en scene. When filming in the church we used a spider track and dolly, when using this I learned the importance of making sure the track is straight and how the tiniest kink in the track can have a dramatic effect on the final shot.
When it came to editing our product, we used ‘Final Cut Pro’, a professional editing software application from Apple Inc. We learnt how to construct bin and log film to group shots into appropriate divisions. We used the drag and drop facility to add various clips to the time line and used the razor tool to cut and edit the clips so they fitted together in a coherent, chronological order. After we had the final cut of our product we started to add effects and transitions. The main transitions we used were ‘cross dissolve’ and ‘fade in fade out dissolve’. To add effects we use a ‘bloom’ effect to change the colour contrast and brightness of the images which gave us the effective flash of fire across the screen in the title sequence. We also used the ‘Colour Key’ tool to impose images behind the flames.
For the soundtrack we listened to some un-copyrighted sound/songs on various DVDs and picked two songs and a fireball sound effect which worked well with our product, we then added them to our product on Final Cut Pro. Although this wasn’t our original idea for soundtrack, it is still effective.
As a result of all this practice I now feel very confident when using Final Cut Pro and feel I could, and would want to, happily edit a longer more complicated piece of film.
LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT ABOUT THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FINISHED PRODUCT?
Since my preliminary task, I have learnt about the importance of organization when making a film. We spent a great deal of time trying to secure locations, writing risk assessments, obtaining actors and providing various contracts. Although this was, at times, very arduous, I did enjoy it and it made me consider a career in film production. Research also proved very useful, before starting work on our product I watched a great deal of classic horror films and read interviews with director ect. and this was very helpful when it came to analyzing what made a horror film scary and how to exploit fear. As a result of all this research I found it easier to write the script and I managed to produce, in my opinion, a good quality script. We learnt how to storyboard and how helpful this was when we came to filming, as it gave us a clear indication of the exact shots we needed.
We learnt importance of company formation and how imperative it was that we kept a good working relationship with the other people in the production company to minimize conflict and disagreements. On the shoot day I felt I achieved a lot as an individual. I helped set up the lighting and learnt about three-point lighting. I also operated the camera for the tracking and panning shot.
In terms of editing, my contribution was more than substantial. I managed to put together most of the final cut as well as add a lot of the effects and credits. I learnt how important it is to work as a team, unfortunately I learnt this the hard way. Just days from the final deadline, we were let down by a member of our team who had failed their task of recording the soundtrack. We had to completely re-do the music and it wasn’t as effective as it could have potentially been.
If I went back and did this again I would do a number of things differently. I would take more time planning and make sure everything was completely ready before filming to reduce the risk of mistakes/problems. I would also spend more time editing because I think our final product had the potential to flow better, I would have liked to go back and just smooth out a few glitches. Finally, I would have devised a way to make sure each group member was pulling their weight and achieving everything they were tasked with.
This opportunity has really given me an insight into the world of film and has made me feel even more enthusiastic about pursuing a career in media.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Editing
When editing our title sequence we used a program called 'Final Cut Pro.' This is a professional editing software application from Apple Inc. It is only available for Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, and is a component of the Final Cut Studio product. ‘Final Cut Pro’ logs and captures video onto a hard drive (internal or external), where it can be edited and processed.
When it came to editing our product, we used ‘Final Cut Pro’, a professional editing software application from Apple Inc. We learnt how to construct bin and log film to group shots into appropriate divisions. We used the drag and drop facility to add various clips to the time line and used the razor tool to cut and edit the clips so they fitted together in a coherent, chronological order. As well as using Final Cut Pro just to get our final cut of the opening sequence, we also did all our after effects and transitions in Final Cut Pro . The main transitions we used were ‘cross dissolve’ and ‘fade in fade out dissolve’. To add effects we use a ‘bloom’ effect to change the colour contrast and brightness of the images which gave us the effective flash of fire across the screen in the title sequence. We also used the ‘Colour Key’ tool to impose images behind the flames. We also did our credits sequence in Final Cut Pro using the text tool.
When it came to editing our product, we used ‘Final Cut Pro’, a professional editing software application from Apple Inc. We learnt how to construct bin and log film to group shots into appropriate divisions. We used the drag and drop facility to add various clips to the time line and used the razor tool to cut and edit the clips so they fitted together in a coherent, chronological order. As well as using Final Cut Pro just to get our final cut of the opening sequence, we also did all our after effects and transitions in Final Cut Pro . The main transitions we used were ‘cross dissolve’ and ‘fade in fade out dissolve’. To add effects we use a ‘bloom’ effect to change the colour contrast and brightness of the images which gave us the effective flash of fire across the screen in the title sequence. We also used the ‘Colour Key’ tool to impose images behind the flames. We also did our credits sequence in Final Cut Pro using the text tool.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)