I'm working in a group of 3 with Ben Brearley and Dom Ellis on a slasher film opening with the working title of Black Nightmare, and on this blog you'll see all the research and planning behind our production.
We showed our media teacher our rough cut and recorded the feedback he gave us, which we can then go on to improve our film opening with.
Title
Firstly he noticed that with our subtitles at the start they're out of time with the scene with the killer walking down the stairs, and also some spelling mistakes in the actual credits so we need to go back and edit these, and he also picked up on the font we used as there wasn't much thought given into these credits so when we go back and edit these we should think about whether to use san serif font or serif font and why we've chosen to use this font, also at the start we didn't include our idents which we should of done. Then at the end of these subtitles the title of our film 'Black Nightmare' is shown but there wasn't much editing done for our title and it doesn't provide any exposition for the film genre which we were trying to so we should go back and change this so it looks more like a slasher genre title, and at the end of these titles our media teacher suggested we should have some sort of transition to the next scene to provide some continuity so it doesn't look odd, and we could use a distinctive noise or action to audio bridge from the credits to the next scene. Also the titles can be stretched out throughout our opening they don't need to be all at the start so we can experiment with this and see how it works.
Long Take
Then he thought that our long takes needed cutting down and shortening so they have more of an effect so we'll need to go back and edit this, and when we cut back from the stalk scene to the killer's room we could edit it so the cut back scene are distort to distinguish the difference in time and place. Also he noticed at points where our actors look at the camera so we need to cut out these so it's more realistic.
Then instead of re-shooting the chopping up of the meat where it's too slow we could speed of the chopping motion with the swing and add a loud bang on each chop so the aggression is more realistic from this killer, and we need some more continuity with our scenes so for example link up the chop with the closing of the door.
Also we need to work on our sound and cut out the wind interference so to replace this we should record ambient sound, and add all the sound that we're going to include in our final piece, for example we're going to re shoot the scene with the chopping up of the meat and include squelching noises of the meat and repulsive sounds to make the audience feel uncomfortable.
Violent Scene
And to make our violent scene more dramatic we need to break it up more and make it quicker with fast pace editing, and skip from where the killer picks up his victim to putting her into the car with the door on the car shutting with a final swing of the chopping up of the meat.
From the feedback we received from our media teacher and from our target audience we decided on making improvements, such as when it cuts from the steps down the stairs to the credits the foot steps are not in time with the sound so we need to go back and edit this. Also the credits could do with some improvements so that they anchor the slasher genre because they don't relate to the genre, and at the end of these credits the title ' Black Nightmare' is shown, but it was boring and didn't signify the genre so we'll have to edit this also and possibly add some special effects which signify the genre more.
Psycho
And some of the shots that we have are too long and that they loose the build up of tension , instead these long shots provide oppositional reading which is what we are not trying to provide instead we need preferred reading so we'll have to go back and edit these shots so that they're shorter. Also the violent scene could do with some adjusting because it was too long so we'll go back and use shorter takes and include some fast pace editing, a good example of lots of takes and fast pace editing is the shower scene in Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock ,1960 ) so we'll take influence from this and use it for out violent scene. And for the scene where the killer is chopping of the bits of meat it wasn't aggressive enough with the meat as a killer would normally be. Also the sound could of been more effective to make the audience feel uncomfortable, for example squelching of the meat when the killer handles it. So this will be another scene that we'll have to either go back and edit with the sounds or re-shoot.
We asked a group of teenagers, ages 16-17, to watch our rough cut and give feedback as it'd be useful to know what they think because they're in range of our target audience ( 15-25 ), then from this feedback we can see what worked and what didn't, which we can then go on to make improvements to our film.
They thought the start worked well with the variable focus acting in away to provide narrative enigma with the killer's footsteps walking down the stairs. However, when it cuts from these steps down the stairs to the credits they noticed that the foot steps are not in time with the sound so we need to go back and edit this. Also the credits could do with some improvements so that they anchor the slasher genre because our audience didn't think they related to the genre, and at the end of these credits the title ' Black Nightmare' is shown, but our audience thought that it was boring and didn't signify the genre so we'll have to edit this also and possibly add some special effects which signify the genre more.
Also our audience felt that some of the shots that we have are too long and that they loose the build up of tension , instead these long shots provide oppositional reading which is what we are not trying to provide instead we need preferred reading so we'll have to go back and edit these shots so that they're shorter. However they thought that the point of view shots from the killer's perspective in the bushes worked well and also provided the on going narrative enigma which is what we were aiming for, but the actually violent scene they thought could do with some adjusting because it was too long they thought so we'll go back and use shorter takes and include some fast pace editing, a good example of lots of takes and fast pace editing is the shower scene in Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock ,1960 ) so we'll take influence from this and use it for out violent scene.
Then they thought that the mise-en-scene for the killer's room worked well as the pictures on the wall gave the sense of this killer's stalking obsession with the victims, and also the blood on the killer's apron worked well along with his old black boots, however for the scene where the killer actually strikes his victim with the knife they thought it could of been faster and more aggressive as it doesn't look as scary it would if it was aggressive, also blood could of been used in this scene for the blows on the victim so we'll go back and re-shoot this scene.
And for the scene where the killer is chopping of the bits of meat our audience felt that he wasn't aggressive enough with the meat as a killer would normally be. Also the sound could of been more effective so make the audience feel uncomfortable, for example squelching of the meat when the killer handles it. So this will be another scene that we'll have to either go back and edit with the sounds or re-shoot.
These are clips of some of our target audience giving feedback...
We planned to re-shoot our scene where we reveal the killer's obsession and how he stalks his victims and their houses, because when we first did it we didn't think about the mis-en-scene in much detail so when it came to filming the scene with just 4 photo's with them being neatly placed on a cork board it didn't portray the obsession that the killer has, whereas instead it just made him look like a tidy freak instead of an obsessive stalker who's been watching his victims.
Final cut killer's wall
So we went back and re-shooted the scene with more photo's to make it look like the killer has more of an obsession and that he's had more than just 4 victims, and also instead of pinning them up neatly on a cork board we just used nails and pinned them up randomly to look more scruffy. Also we included pictures of the victims instead of just their houses so it looks more targeted at the final girl and the scream queen in the film.
Final cut killer's feet
Rough cut killer's feet
This is a shot of the killer's feet and we were trying to provide narrative enigma for the character, however trainers don't give a good description towards a killer instead it seems more like a teenage boy, so when we next shot this scene we used old black boots instead to give a more realistic description for the killer to him being older.
In this next scene scene we were trying to reveal the final girl and the scream queen however we didn't do it well enough for the audience to distinguish who was who as we didn't plan it as we should of, we should of had the scream queen being blonde and the final girl a brunette , however here we have both scream queen and final girl bruntte so we need to re-shoot this and find new casting for the scream queen. Also for the scream queen we needed to show her being sexually active and the final girl being the opposite and instead being more ecademic, so we intend to show this with the scream queen having a boyfriend and the final girl carrying books in our re-shoot.
And in our re-shoot we did include a scream queen's boyfriend and did a bedroom scene to signify that the scream queen was sexually active whcih is stereotypical of the scream queen, and to provide a binary opposite with the sterotypical final girl who isn't sexually active.
From the feedback we received from our media teacher we've learnt that we need to go back and re-shoot and re-edit, such as improve on the scenes we did have for example with the chopping up of the meat scene there's insufficient lighting so we'll have to go back an re-shoot this with better lighting, and the killer also didn't seem like a killer because he wasn't aggressive enough with the chopping up and was to neat and gentle, whereas a killer wouldn't care with his swings and would be much more aggressive. Also there should of been more blood and squeamish sound effects to make the audience feel uncomfortable with this scene , so we'll go back and record better sounding and even put in some ambient sound to make it more clearer.
Also with the opening titles they need a lot of editing because there's just no meaning to them at all and there's some spelling mistakes, and it looks stupid when it says subtitle after each title because we forgot to remove this so we'll have to go back and change this.
With this rough cut we knew from the start that our feedback wouldn't be great because we had insufficient camera shots and were missing scenes that we didn't manage to get filmed. However in our next rough cut we'll have all our scenes done and ready for a full opening feedback.
But we did get useful feedback from our media teacher. Because he showed us what could be improved on the scenes we did have, for example with the chopping up of the meat scene there's insuffient lighting so we'll have to go back an re-shoot this with better lighting, and the killer also didn't seem like a killer because he wasn't agressive enough with the chopping up and was to neat and gentle, whereas a killer wouldn't care with his swings and would be much more agressive. Also there should of been more blood and squeemish sound effects to make the audience feel uncomfortable with this scene , so we'll go back and record better sounding and even put in some ambient sound to make it more clearer.
Also with the opening titles they need a lot of editing because there's just no meaning to them at all and there's some spelling mistakes, and it looks stupid when it says subtitle after each title because we forgot to remove this so we'll have to go back and change this.
However he thought that there was an improvement in our mise-en-scene ideas where we had the killer wearing big, old, black boots so we'll carry on using this boots for the killer's costume along with the blooded white apron.
With this rough cut we're missing plenty of footage that should of been included, and we're already planning on re-shooting the scenes that we have included as they're not of the quality we are looking for.
We chose to use Ben's cellar for the killer's room as it was easy to adjust it so it looked like the killer's room, for example before we touched it there wasn't much there so we just had to add to the cellar to make it look more realistic for the killer's room, and to do this we used a big black sheer that was large enough to cover the whole wall and it just needed nailing to the wall. Even though we didn't fill the whole of the cellar like this we didn't have to because we only focused the camera on this one wall.Also we had to take the car out so that we were able to film in here.
After
Before
Then for the pictures on the wall we just printed out lots of pictures from Google images of houses that looked similar to the house we used in our film, this way it looked like the killer had previous victims round the same neighbourhood. Also we took pictures of our scream queen and our final girl and used these as well on the wall to try signify that the killer has stalked his victims.
Scream Queen's House: With the house we used it didn't need much adjusting because we only showed 1 room in the house and it was a bedroom but it was only a short scene, however we did need to make it look like the scream queen's bedroom so it's realistic but we didn't have to change it round that much as it was already believable. Then the only other thing was to remove a car from the drive so that the scream queen could drive on to the drive.
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