James Corker, Craig Mullen and Lauren O'Brien - Animus Messor from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

A2 Media

After much debate me and James have come to a decision about the type of research we are going to undergo, and we have had many thoughts and ideas about the actual final piece itself these ideas will be posted at a later date. So far we have begun to look at many videos and album covers from the "metal" genre particularly bands that have actually influenced the band "Vortex", of which we are basing our project around. So far we have looked mainly at album covers and a few videos from bands such as Evile, slayer, metallica and Anthrax each of these bands are quite popular and so gives us more material to browse through and look at. We have also began to look at the magazine "Terroizer" a cult metal magazine, in order to try and see what album adverts look like so we can get a good idea of how to produce our and what our advert should look like. Also when we have looked in depth at some of the album covers typical of the genre we have seen that the artwork shown on some of these album covers could be very difficult for us to reproduce and upon further study of the genre we did fine some album artworks that were simpler yet still effective and so this type would be more adequate for us being that neither me or James are particularly specialised in art. Later on we will begin to post amongst both our blogs different albums, posters and music videos that we will most likely take influence from and that we can utilize to make sure that our final piece fits the codes and conventions of the genre.

A2 Media

Today we have started the A2 course we have been given the choice of three briefs. From these three briefs there was the choice of creating either a music video, a trailer or a short film each of these with supporting documents such as adverts and posters etc. Out of these three i have chosen the first brief; musical package. This brief consists of creating a music video, a digpack and album cover and a magazine advertisment. On this project i am working with James Burton who has agreed to work on a music video of my choice which also is in his interests whcih is why we have chosen to work together. Already we have a good idea about what we want to do, we have chosen to focus upon a band which I am good friends with all of the band members who have already agreed on allowing us to use them as a focus for this project. The band is a thrash metal band from Durham called Vortex recently they have begun to enjoy alot of success within the region and so have agreed that that can work together with us to produce something beneficial for both parties.

Evaluation - Audio Commentary of the Final Project

Untitled from Craig Mullen on Vimeo.

Final Task - Group Presentation

Craig, James and Lauren's Presentation - Animus Messor from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

Evaluation - Interview

Craig and James - Animus Messor Evaluation from Chris Earl on Vimeo.

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

Our preliminary task, the continuity project, was something that was indeed not the worst thing in the world, but it was consistently flawed. Despite its subject as a continuity project we still had multiple continuity errors in our project, this due in part to bad planning, we filmed practically the minimal amount, and not fully understanding the technology filmed quite late at night which created a very saturated and reddish glow to our work. Regarding this when we filmed our final project we took every experience we had into respect, we planned massively, and filmed massively. for every couple of seconds or minutes of footage we needed we filmed it at least three or four times. In the end this played to our advantage, at one point when we found a prop had somehow changed hands it almost seemed impossible to correct, until out of sheer chance we checked the footage and found that we had indeed filmed with the prop in the correct hand, this shows that truly over filming is one of the most important things you can do and it is vital that you do it as it can easily correct any errors. We also managed our time better being that we filmed outside during the day forgetting about trying to use darkness after we found out what it does to the camera quality, doing this we got a really good clear image outside in comparison to what we ended up with last time which was a saturated and awful quality to watch. Overall i would say over the course of the subject we have picked up many tips and strategies that we utilised in our final project which not only saved us from a few situations but also improved the overall general quality of the final piece.

Evaluation - What have you learned about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The best option we had to choose from was premier pro, something after which we experienced we wished we had gone for a different piece of software. However despite this premier pro does allow for precise frame to frame editing, not only this but it provides a range of effects. Effects of which played a primary part in the construction of our piece, and so the problems with premier aside, it is good piece of technology that did indeed provide with much of what we needed in order to makes and put together out piece to the highest quality. While it may have been able to outfit our project with all of these fancy effects and able to allow us to edit with upmost precision, premier did not come without its drawbacks. We were made to suffer through countless errors and debug, which each time shut down the program deleting any work we had not previously saved, in many cases this resulted in us having to redo many things over and over, prolonging to period of editing almost exceeding out given deadlines. The problem was that the camera we used which shot HD, obviously giving us a great shot quality and good polished looks to our footage. Premier on the other was something that was not suited to this higher quality of format, and so when the files were put on it resulted in elongated periods of rendering and immense loading times, which over time just meant more and more time had to be poured into editing something which for  time worried us that we would not be able to hit the final deadline. Thanks however to Mr Earl, who converted out files to a DV format and re-uploaded them onto the server, when these lower quality files were put onto premier we found almost instantly that premier functioned and ran so much quicker. It was thanks to this that we finally began to make real progress with our project, managing to render in about half an hour rather than six hours which it was before. However it was not just the editing software that we had to deal with, the camera we used as mentioned filmed in HD and was set default to film in 60 frames per second, however this 60 frames per second was too high quality and so we had to reduce it to 30. The only problem was when the camera was closed it would reset itself to default back to the sixty setting meaning that the camera had to be left on throughout the whole process of filming which when moving about from location to location was something difficult to do and did result in some footage filmed in 60 frames and so making it more difficult to edit being that it was of a higher quality and making loading times increased and paining us again with the loading times and rendering times. However overall we learned that it is beast to convert the footage to DV format before editing something on a larger scale being that it loads quicker and runs quicker making the editing process alot quicker and less arduous experience.

Evaluation - How did you attract/adress the audience?

In terms of attracting our particular audience, the type of person who would see this film would be immediately attracted anyway, simply by the element of horror entwined with that of mystery and suspicion. But in our piece we have incorporated the ability for the audience to make their own judgement as to what is going on in the scene, through use of different camera angles we never give away what the true motives are or even what the killer is actually doing, if he is a killer at all. this is the sort of thing that attracts our audience this element of mystery this guise which allows them to become part of the film, them seeing what is going on but not being told even at the end. It is this sort of mystery and gut wrenching horror which not only attracts our audience but addresses them as well, making them eager to see the film, and eager to become immersed in its shroud of mystery and enigma.

Evaluation - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Generally the audience of our piece will be male, they will be between 18-26 years old. This makes it so that they can watch a horror film and be frightened by it but with their attitude towards life it will not terrify them into never wanting to see it again. The type of film they will have seen and enjoyed would be films like Seven, Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Omen and Paranormal Activity. All of these films have definite elements of horror but jointly they do not show a over exaggerated amount of blood or gore. These film tend to focus of frightening the viewer in a very different way, they play on human fear utilising elements of the human psyche that frighten people or that have been repressed or hidden. The audience enjoys a certain amount of mystery and the idea of being kept in the unknown, while watching a film they love to kept at the end of their seat and enjoy the feeling of being kept in the dark and waiting for the worst to happen. The audience will predominantly be male with the horror genre being stereotypically aimed at more of a male audience, there will have be a nique in the female market whereby for women who do enjoy the horror genre. Also we are choosing to target a much smaller audience that perhaps normal horror films would, with the sub-genre we have focused on it often can make the plot line very deep and often difficult to follow, and so people who are interested in this genre are not people who wish to be able to watch a film and just be able to relax and watch it. They will be watching every single detail in the film, looking and paying attention to what is going on in every scene to try and find some connection between the plot line and the characters. This means that the audience must be highly interested in this type of genre and extremely eager to be kept on their seat and shrouded in the mystery of the film and the uncertainty that it carries with it. 

Evaluation - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

The most appropriate choice of distributer we felt had to be Lionsgate. Lions gate are known for their distribution of perhaps the lower budget film productions and even more relevant the distribution of higher certificate horror films such as ours would be. Lions gate famously have distributed the Saw films widely acclaimed psychological films linked to Twisted Pictures brand also distributed by Lionsgate. To us this seemed like an obvious choice to keep to a company that would really be interested in the genre of film that we were producing, it having produced ones of the same genre and classification.

Evaluation - How does your media project represent particular social groups?

Relating to the way our project was shot we were not intended upon representing a particular group of people as a whole, being that we included a limited amount of characters and furthermore did not even reveal the true identity of the main character. However in focussing solely upon the main character we did indeed provide a representation of a group of people even linked in with the genre of our film. The idea of the human psyche having a darker nature, the sort of nature that expresses such desires to commit atrocities such as cannibalism and murder, this is the representation that we have presented in out project. Primarily the idea that every person has this repressed darker side that they are scared of and that they choose to keep hidden from society, but it is always present. For the people who actually embrace this we show them to be manipulative and cunning and seriously twisted in many ways and the way that they go about their lives leading them to fulfil these heinous aspirations. Another social group represented on perhaps a much wider scale is that of gender the idea that women are weaker than men, the idea that they are victims this idea shown in the motif we have created in our film of the female victim. It suggests that they do not have to power to defend themselves and as it makes itself obvious toward the end on the film that the main character is about to go and kill another female this representation is further amplified.

Evaluation - How does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our production was heavily based upon films we ourselves as a group watched, we did this in order to make sure we adhered to the codes and conventions of the genre we had chosen to film, that being the psychological horror a sub genre of horror.  Myself I focussed heavily on the opening of seven hence alot of similarities between our final piece and that of the opening to seven. However another piece I looked at which we found useful was the opening scene to the TV series Dexter, while this was a TV series it adhered greatly to the codes and conventions we wished to abide by and was extremely useful in aiding us with our selection of shots and camera angles to use. In terms of how our product develops the common codes and conventions of the genre is the eerie atmosphere created by our shot choice and general style of filming. Heavily influenced by Seven we used a lot of close ups in order to prevent the viewer from being able to witness the whole scene in front of them, it allowed us to hide certain aspects of the scene and so in turn create an aura of mystery to the opening making the audience unsure as to what is happening and perusing a sense of enigma in the way they must keep watching to see what is actually going on in the scene. Another convention of the genre we used was the hiding of the characters face; in doing this we further amplify the feeling of mystery and horror in our piece. The audience in consequently not able to in the opening scene able to witness the true identity of the cannibal and so they are left out in the unknown left to second guess what is going to happen. By filming in an ambiguous nature we further adhered to codes and conventions of our chosen genre, the actual evidence of what is happening is so hidden from the viewer and they are unsure as to what is going on further forcing the insuring sense of horror and foreboding as to the persona’s actions in the scene. The general focus of a cannibal in our film furthermore continues to apply to the genre in that commonly psychological horrors focus primarily on the scariest part of the human psyche. Often this is the part most heavily repressed by people the urge to be crazy and let out a more insane side to a personality is something that we intended to portray in order to truly to create something that did scare out intended target audience. More over the use of effects which furthermore fragmented our shoot breaking up making it seem jarred and uncertain also boosted this enigma of horror, being a representation of the killer himself whereby he is also fragmented and broken in a psychological way which has furthermore led him the lifestyle of a serial killer and cannibalism. The music we used was mainly to create tension in the shoot, and primarily a sensation of foreboding, as if the structure of the shoot is leading up to something bigger, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats in true fear of what this something actually is.

Final Project

This is the final cut of our project, overall we are happy with what we have produced. however it is being significantly changed since the creation of the script, many things have been edited due to unfortunate circumstances, mainly this being due to location and lack of props. We had problem aquiring fake blood to use in our shoot, particulary fake blood of which did not look remotely fake. This made us have to rethink the script and change as we went along. Conclusivly though it has roughly followed the script we originally set out which was good and was something that was difficult to do but in doing it, it meant we ended up with a better final project.

Final Project

Our final project is currently exporting itself and hopefully it will continue to do with no problems. After many problems what we encountered throughout the edit, we have been able to get the project completed for the deadline that was itended. Overall as a group we are pleased with the project and most aspects of it, however as always there are some parts that we feel could be better. In my next blog entry i will post the final finished cut of our project.

Final Project

Over the past few days we have been working continuously very hard to meet the deadline by next week, thank to Mr Earl for changing to format of our files, premier has been very reliable and has not crashed at all this week. Due to this we have been able to make considerable progress with our project. We have now after putting on the rough cut, redone out opening animation giving it more movement giving it more professional quality, we have also added a Lionsgate indent. And have began to add animation to the titles throughout the clip, furthermore we are currently finishing off adding effect to the titles, smoothing out a few of the edits  in the clip and we a re beginning to experiment with some combinations of eriee music which will add further tone and atmosphere to our final cut.

Final Project Rough Cut

Ths is the rough cut of out film opening, due to problems beyond our control it is abit later than it should have been. Overall the way it is looking we are reasonably happy with it, there is a few problems we feel we could fix and perhaps make some of the cits a little bit smoother and some of the edits to look more professional to enhance the quality of the film. Another thing as well to take note is in the rough cut we have not yet finished the audio and so throughout the beginning clips there is the sound of music and voices in the background these will be taken off when the final cut is done, so they are just be ignored for the time. However the audio outside has all been sorted and so we only have to fiddle with the audio on the first minute or so of video. One thing we are very happy with is the job that Lauren and James did by timing the end music with the shutting of the door, this adds a very ominous effect to the video which creates the atmosphere perfectly. Any one who has the time could they comment on this and give us feedback on what you like and dont like to makes sure we can then improve our project best as possible.

Final Project

Today we were raking through some of the earlier footage we have taken when during the filming process, and we found a piece of film that we can use to filter out a continuity error that was present in our film. The error was that in one shot the knife and bowl were in my hand then in the next they had changed hands. However while raking through our footage we found a shot where the knife and bowl were in the correct hands and this has made it much easier to improve the continous flow of our project. This showed us why it was so important that we filmed more than we actually needed for the project, this way we had a stroke of luck and actually found some footage that we required to complete our project

Final Project

Over the weekend Mr Earl has converted all of our files to a better format in hope that it would help us throughout the editing period and make out editing that much quicker and to make the film run the smoother. the idea is that the original format the videos were shot in was a HD format, the programme we are using to edit it is not built for this high quality format and so when the files have been put on they are often very choppy and difficult to edit. with the way it is being done now hopefully it will mean quicker loading times and faster rendering and editng. However we now face a massive problem we have to begin our editing from scratch and begin all over again. This means we will be considerably far behind and have to do alot of catching up in order to ensure we can hit the deadlines intended for us. Moreover, if the files work better, then it should make the edting process alot quicker for us anyway meaning if we put alot of work on after school and at lunch times, and this way we can ensure that we can redo everything we have already done using our project as a base for what we want to do.

Final Project

We have discovered a new way to edit our film, when the texturize effect plays we have a flash of white across the screen, just a frame in time not even a second. we went on to further play with this effect, we discovered we could use the same effect but project a picture onto the screen if only for a split second, currently we have used a picture of a twisted face, we then inverted the colour so no the bright white flash appears but the picture is also there slightly visible. This conforms to codes and conventions of the psychological horror genre being that the fear of the unknown is what scares the audience, this quick glimpse of what is going on in the killers head is meant to make the audience jump and hopefully it will work to this effect.

Final Project

We have returned back after our half term, unable to edit over the half term, we are now deep withing the process of editing. Again due to problems with the technology we were unable to produce a rough cut by the end of the last week. We are now working hard to ensure we have a rough cut by the end of this week, currently we have put all of the shots together in the order we think we will want them to be in. We have prepared the first rough cut to be reviewed to make sure we can attain our feedback and then again act on this feedback, once again due to the unreliablilty of premier pro we are having problems exporting the final file. Yesterday we managed to fully render the whole file, but then when it began to export it crashed multiple times, today we are hoping we can get the file exporting and get out feedback and begin work on adding the effects into the shoot and making the editing smoother.

Final Project

Yesterday we stayed behind after school in order to make sure we can get a rough cut finished for the first deadline. We decided to experiment with the texturize effect in order to create a style of video very closely related to the general make up of the movie "Seven". Currently it looks acceptable on the video, however now we are beginning to worry that we may to begin to overuse the texturize effect and therefore we are going to have to watch how much we use it throughout the film. Even with the effect in place it still looks a bit choppy and the way that the effect cuts in between scene often blurs the picture making it difficult to make out what is actually happening on the film. As we are going through the final parts of our editing process we are going to have to ensure that at the points of which we implement the texturize effect we ensure that it is used in the right situations and fits the scene accordingly. The biggest problem being as mentioned making sure that we do not overuse the effect and in doing so render it mundane and so it in turn making the shoot look repetitive and boring. In order to counter this we are going to explore more possible effects we could incorporate throughout the editing process. This phase may be something that we can explore after the rough cut has been done, this would allow us to act upon the feedback we receive and evaluate the usefulness of the effects we are using. In terms of progress we are reasonably close to getting the clips into the correct order, this will not take too long as long as premier pro goes smoothly which it is currently not, at the moment it is taking extensive time to load and even more time to edit and render making it very difficult to make sure the cuts in our edits are accurate due to the choppiness of the clips. However slowly it is coming together and we should have a rough cut ready very soon. The last thing that we need to do is to just shorten a few of the clips and add the titles in regarding directors, writers and actors etc. When this is done we should hopefully be able to export the file and upload it onto the blog.

Final Project

Began to edit some more of the footage that we have taken. we are currently having problems with computer speed, in the way that premier pro (the programme we are using to edit) has repeatedly crashed. This has made it progressively more difficult to edit the footage, also with the way that the videos are jumping it makes them difficult to edit, we have tried rendering them to make them more smoother and to ensure that the cuts and edits we make are quicker and more accurate, even this has endeavoured to provide more obstacles. When we tried to render the new footage the process of rendering is taking an extremely long time, meaning that more and more time is required in order to ensure the process is finished to meet the deadline. On the other hand we are sure that we now have enough footage and enough shot variety included in our project which we worried may have been an earlier problem regarding the style of our shoot being unable to see the protagonists face or reveal his identity. Overall the editing is going well and it is beginning to come together, the process is just very slow and time consuming.

Final Project

We finally managed to get the props for the final part of our filming and we have now completed all of our filming for this project. I managed to go to sainsburie's on Sunday and get two lamb kidneys, and a large piece of sirloin steak. In the shoot we used different props to cut up the meat, and we used many different angles to do this. Overall the shooting went well, we had good lighting in the area and external help with the slight bit of acting we required. We have already edited alot of our already shot footage so now all that is required is to put the new shots into the film. This means however we are going to have to spare alot of our own time to try and get the editing done because of delay with the props and problems getting the same location. However now we are on track to getting the shots edited in time for a first rough cut. By this time if we realise we need more shots we have time to organise this.

This is the hand print that we are using for our project, at each point where there is the name of a actor etc appear then this hand will also appear almost like a motif throughout the shoot.

Final Project

Today we are carrying on from what we did yesterday and ensuring that we get a rough cut done for the deadline, we have recently added two new effects to our piece that have massivly improved the quality of it and that we are all happy with. these are:

1. A bloody handprint on the titles screens
2. A heartbeat sound overplaying throughout the whole film

What do people think of these two ideas some feedback would be great. Also i will soon upload pictures of the bloody handprint so that people can have a look at it.

Final Project

This is a compilation of some of the shots we have so far we have put them in order on and edit, we have more shots than this now obviously. But this is a quick preview of what some of the shots will actually be.

Final Project

I have been ill for the past two days and so i have not been in school to take part in the editing however now i have caught up and we need to make the titles to roll throughout the clip the titles we are going to use are:

• Producer
• Distributer
• Writer
• Editor
• Director
• Actors
• Music
• Extras

Final Project

We filmed the outside part of our project and we have very little left to film and we are simply waiting for the location we want to become avaliable again.

Final Project

This is the rough cut of our project, it is compromised of our shots so far being put together

Final Project

Today we are carrying on with the editing of what we already have, we still have some footage to film but we are planning on getting that done tonight and then we will be finsihed filming all together. If we do inccur porblems tonight then our last resort is to film on sunday of which we will have a good seven hours to film, I am currently inquiring as to whether i can use the kitchen we have been filming in tonight, but we should be ok so hopefully we will finish off the rest of the footage tonight and begin to piece it together with the rest of the footage.

Final Project

Today we have edited the footage we took on Monday into a rough cut by simple placing all the shots together to get some idea of what they look like in a sequence. We have decided that on thursday we are going to get the props we need (kidney, fake blood) and film the final part also we will film the outside scene whenever we can get some time in the light as the darkness has proved a problem in the past.

Final Project Filming

We finally managed to get out and begin to shoot some footage, we made some test footage shooting what we could such as light switch and general movement around the kitchen. The only downside is the wallpaper on the wall is "flowery" this could fit into the motif of the killer just being a normal person and how unsuspecting it is that he would be a cannibal. On the other hand it could seem as if its a bit weird however in all other aspects of the kitchen are great size and and lighting wise. The lighting can be altered to face where we want it to face which is how we made the effect of the light switch work by making the light face the switch, meaning it so that when the switch was turned a beam of light was focused directly on the switch rendering from black to light which has a very good effect.

Final Project Title

After we posted out entry about the title of our project we got all results back in, and Animus Messor came back as the favourite winning 3-1 against the second favourite Harvestor. So therefore overall we have the advice of those who commented and gone with the name "Animus Messor".

Final Project - Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule:
We have had a small bit of trouble with the shooting and finding a location at the current moment in time. We lost permission witht he current location, my kitchen is not a availible at this time because it is being renervated and james kitchen is not an appropriate size for our project. However we have just got confirmation that we can use Greg's kitchen and in return we will act in his project as paricular characters.

Wednesday 19th January - Test footage at Greg's house. Might even begin to shot some footage to be used in the final project

Sunday 23rd January - Definately filming at Greg's house. Hoping to get alot of the footage filmed here and get it all finished.

Final Project Title

For our final project we have come up with three ideas:

1. Animus Messor
2. Soul Reaper
3. Harvester

The first two mean the same but the 1st is in Latin. Could a few people comment on this and say which one they like the best.

Final Project Filming

We have arranged a time for everyone to meet up and begin the filming before sunday we need to arrange the place we are going to be filming and arrange the props. We are each going to blog pictures of our kitchins in order to determine which one would be most suitable for the filming.

Final Project - Storyboard

Here is our storyboard for our title sequence, illustrating our main idea we have for our project. Most of our shots so far rely on close ups to fit in with what Seven did, giving snippets of what the killer is doing but not full view of them nor his idenity.

Final Project - Ideas

For our final project we have several ideas of what to do, we do not however want to overload our final project and so we are going to brainstorm the ideas onto the blog and eliminate each them to leave with an idea that incorporates much of the ideas but at the same time does not make the final video seem as if we have just stuffed everything into it.

1. One of our initial ideas was to have a heartbeat playing in the background of the film throughout the whole two minutes and to have it flat lining to represent the death of someone in the scene. Conversely to this we had the idea of creating an opposite atmosphere with as the protagonist is preparing the corpse there would be classical music playing out of the radio.
2. Another idea we had was to have stalking scene whereby he kills someone by going to their house, or have a dead body in the house making it seem as if it is alive. Only to reveal that it isn't alive at all.
3. Also when looking back over the scenario (Posted on all our blogs as well as the storyboard) we realised that the shot range was very limited and used a lot of CU's and ECU's with a certain lack of other shots. TO combat this we have decided to film a new range of shots while shooting and then pick from them which are best. Or we could use multiple different angles to mix up the shots and add variety.

Final Project - Target Audience

Generally the audience of our piece will be male, they will be between 18-26 years old. This makes it so that they can watch a horror film and be frightened by it but with their attitude towards life it will not terrify them into never wanting to see it again. The type of film they will have seen and enjoyed would be films like Seven, Silence of the Lambs, Saw, Omen and Paranormal Activity. All of these films have definite elements of horror but jointly they do not show a over exaggerated amount of blood or gore. These film tend to focus of frightening the viewer in a very different way, they play on human fear utilising elements of the human psyche that frighten people or that have been repressed or hidden. The audience enjoys a certain amount of mystery and the idea of being kept in the unknown, while watching a film they love to kept at the end of their seat and enjoy the feeling of being kept in the dark and waiting for the worst to happen. The audience will predominantly be male with the horror genre being stereotypically aimed at more of a male audience, there will have be a nique in the female market whereby for women who do enjoy the horror genre.