Target Audience

It is very crucial that me and Conor have a better understanding of our target audience so that our film can appeal to them as much as possible, and for advertising purposes, for example the Teaser Poster and Poster. Me and Conor discussed our target audience after coming up with our final narrative, and for audience feedback, we will make sure we use our target audience for this. 

Age: The age of which I believe our film would appeal to is a youth audience (aged 15-25). I think my film would appeal to younger than this, but due to restrictions from BBFC, I think my film would achieve a 15 rating and we would have to base our research into our target audience being aged 15-25.

• As my knowledge of media from the past year has told me, a youth audience likes fast paced editing. This is because they have a much smaller attention spam, and easily get bored if there is not something happening all of the time.
• A youth audience would also prefer the soundtrack to be fast paced and up-beat. Classical style of music would not appeal to a youth audience, they are more interested in electronic produced sounds and syntheses. 

Gender: Because of the blood, violence and scenes of a women being tortured, my film would not appeal to the majority of the female audience, but instead has a massive appeal to the male audience because of the blood, violence and fast pace editing.

• A male audience would expect to see a lot of blood and gore in a horror film. Me and Conor want to accommodate this while also sticking within the guidelines of a 15 BBFC rating.
• A male audience would be appealed to the film more if we used an attractive girl in it, we will use an attractive girl in the house scene. 
• A male audience would expect to see a lot of action our film, we can achieve this by making the scenes of the central protagonist running through the moors to be fast paced editing with lots of different shots used. 

To attract a female audience we have used the dead characters as all male, with a surviving women character shown at the end of the film, we believe this attracts a female audience because of the theory used that women will be attracted to a film that shows a strong female character dominating over male characters, because the male characters died and yet she managed to survive to the end of the film. 

Fans of: Because our film is of the horror genre, you would expect that it would attract fans of horror films, who will be looking for another great gory slasher with a good twist and quite a bit of action, here is how we have planned to attract this audience to our short film: 

• By using inter textual references to horror films to attract fans of the particular movies, for example we are using the sound of a crow to signify death, an inter textual reference to The Crow.
• Our film poster is an inter textual reference to Friday 13th new film poster, a very popular horror movie. 

Ethnicity: Our film has an all Caucasian cast, which means that it will not have any specific appeal to an ethnicity group, our film contains no racism or discrimination to any ethnic groups, neither does it show any conflict. We expect that any ethnic group should be able to enjoy our short film.

Socio-Economic Group: Our film should appeal to any kind of class, even because there is no real evidence to show what class the characters are. However the short film industry, with its low budgets, has a massive appeal to the lower-middle class group, so I would expect them to be very interested in our short film. 

Editing and Post Production Notes

Now that me and Conor have collected all our footage, and cut it down choosing exactly the footage that we want to use in our final cut, we are ready to start editing our footage, this will require us using Final Cut Express, a piece of software which we both did some research into before we started this project, but me and Conor will still be using online tutorials to pick up some much more advanced techniques.

Smoke Effect:
When the central protagonist is in the camp-site he is distracted from looking into the tent from the dead body because he hears the sound of a crow, making him look up and notice black smoke rising from a house, this alarms him to move on.
I need to work out how to create this black smoke onto Final Cut Express, to do this I searched through the Internet. I found a website called Detention Films, which sells effects for Final Cut but also gives some away for free. On the website I managed to find a free effect for black smoke. I have downloaded the video:




I have found a video on youtube which teaches me how to import this into final cut express and remove the green background so that it just looks like there was an explosion in the background, behind the woodland that will distract the central protagonist.

Sound of a Crow:
When the central protagonist is at the camp-site and as he is about to pick up the dead body by the farmhouse, he hears the sound of a crow which distracts him from what he was doing and makes him run away. I have been searching the Internet and have managed to find a website which gives away free sound effects that are also copyright-free. (http://www.ilovewavs.com/Effects/Birds/Birds.htm)
I then just need to import the sound clip into Final Cut and add it over the clip where the central protagonist looks up. I may need to cut down the clip a little as it lasts about 10 seconds, and this is far too long.

Lighting Adjustments:
I have noticed wile watching all of my clips that the lighting is quite variable and changes a lot in scenes, to avoid confusion of time to the audience, and to create a more horror feel to the film I will need to darken down some of the clips. The final cut website tells me how I can do this, so I am going to use the video tutorial placed on there to help me learn how to adjust he lighting levels.

Voice Over:

Me and Conor have decided that when we had our Final Cut, we needed to add in a voice over of a radio station to help anchor the preferred reading of our text. We will record a voice of a news reporter using our own voices, there is now a voice recorder in the media department we can use to record this. We will record the news report, choosing the words carefully to anchor our preferred reading, we will then add this over our soundtrack and add in the sound of radio frequency waves to signify it is a news report.

Production Schedule

Here is how me and Conor plan to have all our filming done. It is very likely that we will have problems with filming and not be able to completly comply with this schedule, but I will create a post outlining a diary of filming so that you can see exactly how we managed to follow (or not follow) this schedule:

Monday 23rd November: On this day we hope to film all of our test footage so that we can have a look at it and decide exactly how our filming should be conducted. We should aim to test a lot of different camera angles and shots in this session, and actors performance will not be crucial!

Tuesday 24th November: On this day we hope to film all of our scenes up on Ilkley moor, this will require taking plenty of shots so that we have a lot to play with when ti comes to editing and do not need to travel up there again and re-set up the scenes.

Thursday 26th November: On our final day of filming we plan to film the footage in my house were the victim is introduced. This will require us collecting a lot of props to set up the scene properly, which is why I gave ourselves a day off in between to collect all these props. 

Screenplay

The Unknown Secret- Screenplay

Storyboard

Other Style Notes and Test Footage

Test Shots 
Me and Conor set out filming our test footage on Monday 23rd November, we went up to where we chose to film on the moor and tried out some test shots with our actor Olivier. We tried out some different camera angles for the shots of the central protagonist walking along as these were the shots we were not sure about. 

Here is the footage of our different walking shots:

We then went to my house, the second location of our film, and tried some test shots of how we could hide the girl tied up until the central protagonist ducks down to wash his face. Notice that it takes a few shots to get this right.

Here is the footage of testing the angle of this shot:


Finally I carried out some test shots with the lighting in the kitchen. This meant setting up the camera and then using my dimming lights to see how bright they would need to be. I was looking for an image that would be clear but at the same time not too bright.


Here is the footage of the light testing:

Props and Set Design

For our film, the mise en scene of the production is very important as there is very little time to connote information to the audience, so the background must connote as much as possible. How me and Conor plan to achieve this is by creating a very realistic set design to our story, and by using props that look real and are well chosen.

Props
The props me and Conor use will be all chopse very carefully so they all have meaning to our story and fit in with the image. Me and Conor have gone through our storyline carefully choosing the props, but of course we may decided to add in more as we are filming, I will add in any extra props to the bottom of this post. Here are the props we have chosen to use:

• Tents- I will be using tents to show the abandoned site of victims of the killer.
• Bags- By leaving bags by the campsite, this shows the people made a quite exit, or did not exit at all!
• Object's to Discard- Creating the same sense as the bags.
• Ropes- Used to tie up the blonde women. 
• Knives- In the background to signify she is about to be killed.

Me and Conor have already collected all the props we will need in preparation to filming.
 

Set Design 
A lot of thought and trial and error has gone into creating the set, especially for the house, me and Conor had to try a lot of ideas before coming to our final conclusion of the set design, this took a lot of time but was important for the mise en scene of our film. Here is our final idea:

The three main settings are the 'Traveller's Camp-site' the 'Abandoned House' and the 'Males House'. Here is how we plan to set it up:

Traveller's Camp-site- This is the first setting in our film and will be made to look like the area has been abandoned due to a quick exit. Me and Conor plan to do this by scattering objects that would have been in use before the quick exit along the floor, and by having the tents still up with sleeping bags inside. To create the visual effect that the campsite was used we will need to step into the mind frame that we have just been robbed or attacked when setting up the objects, and not just scatter the objects on the floor.
We will be putting fake blood on some of the objects and tents to make it obvious that the quick exit was because of a violent attack, although we do not want to give too much away about this.

Abandoned House- There will be no set design for this as it will just be looking up at a house from a distance that me and Conor have already chosen due to it's spooky feel and perfect placement.

The Males House- Another hard place to set up might be inside the boys house. We have to try and make it so that it has the feel of an operating theatre in a hospital but in someone's house, so clean,white and sterile, but also have the lighting so that the audience cant tell that it looks like this at first but then eventually realise it as the twist is revealed. To bypass this problem we might leave the house as it normally is for the shot when he comes in just using a really low lighting, maybe just a candle to highlight his face, then stop filming, set up the kitchen with the surgical theatre theme and then re film using the blue lighting that I have installed in my kitchen when we turn on the lights. 

An Inspiration! 
Obviously by now I have watched so many Horror films that the reason I was able to pick out the ideas for my set design and propps based on ideas that I have picked up wile watching these short films. 
As explained in my Genre Research I was inspired because of the way they used the mise en scene so well to create tension, one paticular film which I found created an excellent mise en scene to show a sense of isolation was The Thing. This was my main inspiration to create the camp-site to look like it had just been abandoned, by doing this I believe that my film also create a sense of isolation.
  
Update on Props and Set Design in the House
After me and Conor looked over the footage of our rough cut, we noticed that the house scenes were simply not scary enough and did not create a good enough twist to our film. This is why we have now decided to change the set design and the props used in this clip, it will create a better mise en scene and make the scene much more scary, helping to anchor our preferred reading.

New Props Used:

• Fake Blood- We created our own fake blood to add onto the knifes.
• Drill- We now use a drill as me and conor like the idea of challenging the codes and conventions of using a knife.
• Paint Sheet- We put up paint sheets for the background and covered them with fake blood.

New Set Design:

Our new set design meant putting up blood covered paint sheets to block of back lighting and anchor the preferred reading that over people had been killed in this area, as for the girl was not bleeding.

Soundtrack

Because I am now at an A2 level, I must try and impress in every area of my film to try and create a final product worth a good grade. For my soundtrack I have decided to ask one of my friends, Olivier Trouille to compose the soundtrack based on my request. By doing this it allows me to create a soundtrack that fits in perfectly with my short film, rather than relying on music that was not composed with my storyline in mind.


I will be giving Olivier my production once it has been cut down to the correct timings, and then going through with him how I want the music to fit in with the storyline. The soundtrack will fit in with the action, so for example as the man hears the sound of the crow, the music levels will be cut down so the audience can hear the crow, and then as the male starts to run, the music will pick up pace.


Olivier is an A2 music student and has composed a lot of his own music, so he has the skills required to produce a good piece. He also is able to play guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and drums. I am very confident that his final product will be of the best quality and play a massive part in creating tension in my film.

Update!

After a conversation with Olivier, Tuesday 20th October, I am now positive that he will be able to create our soundtrack, but will be wanting a brief outline of timing as soon as possible so he can start to create the soundtrack. I have also had conversations with my colleague Conor, and we have decided that our soundtrack will run throughout the full film. This is for two simple reasons, one being that with no dialogue, it would be conventional to have music playing in the background. Also the cameras we are using will not have boom microphones, so there is likely to be unwanted sound. With a soundtrack we can turn down the camera volume and replace it with that of the soundtrack.


Research into Soundtracks 

I have been researching into sound tracks both from the past and present to provide Olivier with sufficient information on how to create a good soundtrack for the horror genre. I have done this because even though he is making our soundtrack, it is still my production I have to put in the effort to make sure the soundtrack will be at the best possible quality. Below is some key information on soundtracks for films, I have chosen to look into 2 examples, but obviously will be listening to a lo more to get a better understanding of a professional soundtrack for a horror genre. Here are my two examples:



Thomas Newman, a very famous and successful composer has written soundtracks for many films in the late 1990's and early 2000.  He has won many awards from his achievements and his work is a great inspiration, and one that I will be showing to Oliver to give him some ideas and inspiration for when he creates our soundtrack. His most recent success in soundtracks have come from films such as American Beauty and Meet Joe Black. He is excellent in creating tension in his music, and relating it to the film. Newman has a unique style of writing, and once you are familiar with it, it's easy to recognize. He composes in themes and reintroduces them in new ways - sometimes lighter, sometimes deeper. Because Meet Joe Black is about death, the soundtrack is somber and reflective, with lyrical melodies and lush symphonic orchestrations. 


A soundtrack more linked to our genre and budget, Halloween was recognized as one of the best horror movie soundtracks of its time. Its simple piano work to create tension was inspiring to any low budget film maker. The sound of the piano used to create tension at the start of the film can still be recognized by most film lovers to this day. The soundtrack really does show how a hugh budget is not needed to create a good soundtrack, just the correct use of the sources available. The soundtrack was created by John Carpenter, who went on to become a well established composer because of the Halloween soundtrack. 
 

FInal Update:
Olivier made our soundtrack today, me and Conor are very grateful to him as he put in about 6 hours of work to complete the soundtrack. The soundtrack is very good and runs in sync with our film perfectly, I am very happy with it.
We gave Olivier a document about exactly how we wanted the soundtrack to be composed, on this sheet was timings of each section of the film so he could sync it with the mood of the music. I also gave Olivier a copy of my rough cut so that he could follow the film and sync it perfectly. 
A problem we found however was that after some audience feedback telling us to make some clips faster, the duration of the film changed and the soundtrack was no longer in sync, this meant I had to cut into some of the soundtrack and sync it back myself, there is now a jump in sound were I have cut the soundtrack which I do not have time to edit out, this is very unfortunate.

Genre Links and Inter-textual References

Our short film is based on a lot of research into genre and short films, and our final proposal was based on ideas from films we have watched over AS and A2 media research, so as you can imagine there are a lot of inter-textual references and genre links. I am now going to go through our final proposal stating the decision making for each main aspect, why we made it and references and links to this idea.

 It is important that as a film maker I understand that as much as I would like my idea to be as individual as possible, and it would be nice to think I have made something no one has ever though of, but this is simply impossible in our modern day world. Film production is becoming cheaper, especially for short films, and there are now millions and millions of short films out there, so I understand that my idea is creative but not unique.


Here is our narrative explained in terms of genre links and inter-textual references: 


The first decision that we made was to have our central protagonist at the age of early 20s. We made this decision because of the bast amount of horror films we have watched, me and conor have noticed that the characters are usually quite young. This is because youth is linked to being violent, rule breaking and full of emotions. We could link this decision to Halloween. In this film that I watched for my As research, I noticed how all the characters where in there early 20s. In this film all of the victims and the villain are in high school and probably a little younger than 20, but it still shows how a younger character is used in the horror genre.


Our second decision was to have the male walking by himself, being centre screened, clearly signifying he is the central protagonist. This is a link to the codes and conventions I have picked wile taking out my short film research, I noticed that in most of the short film the first shot was the central protagonist so I will be taking out the same method in my short film. For example The Black Hole, in this film the first shot shows the central protagonist center screened.

Our third decision was that the character would stumble across a set of bags that have been left and covered in blood. This decision was made on the basis that from a lot of short films I watched had a narrative enigma to set up the scene, and the blood and left behind bags creates a narrative enigma for my audience, why have they been left there, and whose blood is on them? An example of this is on the short film, This Is Me, in this film we see a male in a hospital bed, and this creates a narrative enigma, what is wrong with him?

A fourth decision we made for our short film is the sound of a crow being used when the male decides to start running. In many films the sound of crow has been linked to death, so we decided to use the sound of a crow to show the audience that the central protagonist may get killed, despite the fact that the twist in our story shows that actually he is the murderer. This is an inter-textual reference to the film, The Crow, a horror film from the early 1990s that bases the crow as a symbol of death.

Another decision me and Conor made was to have a house with smoke rising from it. We made this decision because it signifies that there is some suspicious activity taking place in the house. It also sets the scene for the house, and its activity. This is an inter-textual reference to the film Citizen Kane (1941) one of the greatest films ever made. Another inter-textual from a more recent is The Cottage. In this film a girl is kidnapped, as in our film, and as they walk up to a cottage, there is smoke rising from it.

A final main decision in our narrative was to have a blonde girl in a red dress as his victim. There are thousands of inter-textual references to this choice, as in case of many films it is normally the blonde sexually active women who is killed, we signify that the women is sexually active by showing that she is wearing high heels, as high heels are clear connotation to high sexual activity. One particular inter textual reference to this is Psycho, where the blonde women in the first scenes is killed after having sex.

Costume

For my film I will need only two costumes, for each of the characters in the film. I will be going to the art department in my school to ask them to try and help create these costumes. Also my production partner, Conor, is an A2 art student so will also be able to help in dressing the actors to create the correct look. It is very important that each of my characters are dressed in a way that signifies to the audience a bit more information about the character, this is because I am creating a short film and dialogue is not being used, so the look of the character is crucial to introducing each character. 


Character 1; Central Protagonist: This character should be wearing vcry dull clothing, that are quite scruffy, his clothing should not give away too much about the character as the short film is all about the mysteriousness of the male. The male should probably wear a black top and blue jeans, wearing walking boots. This way there is not too much given away about the male as these are very average fashion style.

Character 2; Victim Girl: The girl should look like a typical sexually active blonde women, because as my research has shown me, it is this type of character that an audience would expect to be seen killed. I would like the women to be wearing a nice red dress, to signify blood and death, as she is about to be killed by the male. She should also be wearing high heels as these have a sexual appeal. 

The girl will also need to be wearing make up that is smudged, to signify she has been crying and maybe dragged around by the male. This will mean having mascara running down her face.

Important Update! 
Me and Conor have now found our costume for the male, but as well as struggling to find a female actress we need someone who has a red dress we could borrow. Any followers of our Blog know someone who would have a red dress we could borrow, or have one themselves please leave a comment, and I will get back to you on it. 


Final Update!
Me and Conor have just bought some overalls from a local hardware shop that we are going to get the central protagonist to put on during the house scenes, we also bought a mask to put over the characters face. This will make the transformation from the innocent to the serial killer much more realistic and anchor the preferred reading much better.


However the actress we used was unable to organise a red dress due to a late change in film productions dates, this has potentially ruined the look of the victim, but I think it still works well without the red dress, if me and Conor decide to re-submit however this will be altered. 

Casting

Initial Thoughts on Casting:
Throughout the film we will be needing two separate actors to play the two characters in our short film. So that we can get the best actors possible we will be turning to the drama department in our school and asking one of them to play the main character. This main character will need to be an averaged looking teenage boy, most preferably with dark hair. I will be going to the drama department later this week to ask for the supporting help of this student.
There will also be a women, who is the main protagonists victim in my film. For this character we would preferably have a girl with blonde hair to fit in with the scream queen stereotype but this may change to a boy depending on the availability of actors/actresses. This part is quite a small part, only 5-10 seconds and no talking is involved so instead of an actor from the drama department we may just ask a close friend to play this part.

I will update this post later when the actors are finalised.

Update on Casting (9th November):
Me and Conor are struggling to find a blonde girl who can play our female part in the play, the main reason being not many girls are willing to have make up that looks like they have been tortured, and be tied up. Despite our approach to make it seem less weird, and to ensure the actress she will be fine and no pain of any kind will be experienced, we are still having trouble.

If you are willing, or know someone willing to play the part, please leave a comment on this post, with some form of contact number or email so I can get back to you. 


Final Casting:
After many stressful weeks trying to find a cast for our film, me and Conor have finally managed to find a final cast that will be used in our final production, here is our final cast:


Central Protagonist: 

Name: Olivier Trouille
Acting Experience:Has filmed in other media production within school.
How He Applied: Me and Conor offered him the part because of his 'scrappy' looks and ability to pull good facial expressions.

The Victim:  

Name: Brooke Shipley

Acting Experience:Has filmed in other media production within school and is an A2 Drama student taking part in all school productions.

How He Applied: Replied to an advertisement I posted on social website Facebook.

Locations

It is very important that for my film I create a good mise en scene that will fit in with the horror genre to create a good final cut. The location takes up over half of the shot, and is where most of the key signifier s to the audience are, so I will be looking into many locations that I could use, and making my final decision with my colleague Conor.


Initial Thoughts On Location:

• Me and Conor have both decided that for our first scenes where the character is on a walk, this should be shot in some kind of woodland with tall tress and small pathways to create a feeling of isolation and horror.
  
• We have also decided that the scenes in a house must be shot in a house that has a large area to contain the hanging woman, the male and some sort of torture equipment laid out on a table.

It's All Taking Shape: 
Me and Conor have now come to our final conclusion on locations, and have taken a few test shots in these locations to make sure they fit in with what we want. Here is a description of our locations: 

Location 1- Man on his walk- For when the male is on his walk I plan to shoot these scenes on Ilkley Moor. The reason I have chosen Ilkley Moor is that it has a lot of small and narrow pathways and is also surrounded by trees. With this setting I will be able to give the audience the impression that there could be anything around each corner, and give the impression that the central protagonist is isolated. Also the large trees make the male look smaller, and less in control.

This location also has a very mysterious looking house, this house is what I will use when he looks up and sees the house with smoke rising from it.  


This location has had many horror links to it, that have happened, or supposedly happened in real life, this in itself makes it a perfect location for our film. One example of the moor having a horror link is when someone reported a sighting of an alien on the moor, the picture of this creature shown on the right. There was also the tragic Ilkley Moor Attacker who attached a women walking her dog on the moor. 

Location 2- The House-  I am going to use my own house for this, this is not for convenience but because of the shots we want to get from the house, I have a big enough kitchen to film them in. There is a kitchen with dining room attached in the house, the women will be hanging from the kitchen with knives and rope scattered on the dining room table. 

The male will walk in and stand by the sink, the women will be behind him. The only light in the room will be a blue light shining over the women's head.  

The lighting of the house is crucial, and for it to work we may need to block out some lights to stop too much light coming from areas we do not want it. We want to only shine light on objects that we want the audience to see, and the rest of the room should be pretty dark. 

Teaser Poster 1

I took this image, and edited it in Photoshop Elements 8 to create my teaser poster:

British Cinema

As a British film maker, I am very interested and very inspired by the British Film Industry. An industry which is struggling to pose a threat on Hollywood, yet an industry capable of making films at a very high quality. Also an industry that has been able to grow with the switch to digital technology, as it is now cheaper to send film to the high-profit making, American film-goers. 

British Cinema relates to films that have been created by a British film industry, it does not necessarily mean the film has to be filmed in the UK. A very well known, and the most successful of all British film industry's is Working Title. The reason for Working Titles big success however is its routes to the LA scene, now more than 60% owned by Universal, it poses the question whether a film company can be successful unless it has links to the Hollywood scene.

This Is England: Although this film is not as successful as some of the Working Title films, the film produced by Warp X, and many other UK film industry is very creditable and culturally vital to Briton's sense of self-identity. The gritty low budget film shows how a British film industry can create an inspiring and influential social-realism film without the high-budgets and amazing editing techniques of Hollywood.

Synopsis: A coming-of-age tale set in 1983 on the streets of a small English coastal town...
After being bullied at school, 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) comes across a small band of Skinheads lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), a charismatic and benevolent teenager who befriends the boy immediately. Bringing him into the fold as one of their own, Woody quickly initiates Shaun as a Skinhead to the dismay of his widowed mother. Having lost his father in the Falklands War, Shaun gleefully embraces his new found friends (and look) until the group is split with the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham), an older, nationalist skinhead just released from prison. Once friends, now bitter rivals, Combo and Woody divide the group along political lines. Blaming England's economic woes, growing unemployment and post-war grievances on the influx of foreign minorities, Combo persuades Shaun and other members of the pack to make a stand, preserving England for the English. After attending a meeting of right-wing nationalists, Combo takes his new found gang of hooligans to threaten the local Pakistani community. In his contempt for others, Combo begins to reveal his own emotional battles with loss, loneliness and isolation. When his romantic advances are later rebuffed by Woody's girlfriend and former fling, Lol (Vicky McClure), Combo turns his hate, envy and prejudicial rage against one member of the group to disastrous effect... changing Shaun's viewpoint in an instant.

Another British film industry that has made a name for itself is Warp X. Just as working title, the key personnel behind Warp X started off in the music industry before working with film. The company was initially set up as Warp Films followed by the introduction of Warp X in 2006. This was introduced when UK Film Council gave Warp X £3 million (plus £1.5 million from EM Media & Screen Yorkshire) to produce 6 films in 3 years in order to foster the development of low-budget film making in the UK. Optimum Releasing handles distribution (TV rights to Channel 4/ Film 4) - hardly on the same scale as WT with their tie-ins with Universal and Studio-Canal providing distribution deals for the USA and Europe. Meadows two examples of this
amazingly enough, given the tiny budgets they work on, Warp X has even found time to launch its own offshoots, or subsidiaries: as well as a competition for female comedy film-makers, it has sought to set up a production arm in Australia, taking advantage of government funding there.

The main factor effecting the British Cinema is the dominance of the 'Big 6' conglomerates in particular. With higher budgets, such as Dark Night's overwhelming $185 million budget) how could a British film industry compete with these budgets. Although Working Title is coming close to these high budgets, with their latest high budget release, The Interpreter with a budget of $90 million, it is only because of their links with NBC Universal that they can achieve such high budgets.

The British film industry relies on its success in creating social realist films in order to generate a higher UK population away from the Hollywood releases, and into a environment more suited and recognisable to them, a technique which can only really work on an older audience as a younger audience is always looks for fast paced, high action movies. Films such as Harry Potter uses sci-fi to try and attract a funding, another option chosen by the British film industry. This also attract funding from Europe, which helps the British Cinema to grow even further.

The British social realist tradition, growing out of the 1920s-40s British Documentary Movement, was a key influence on the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism movements of the 50s and 60s - both themselves a reflection of pragmatism in the face of limited availability for funding.
there are occasional exceptions to the rule that US audiences have no interest in social realist films, social realist films' whose underdog protagonists triumphing against the odds neatly reflects the 'American Dream' ideology that any and all US citizens can be winners in their extremely uneven society. 

Hammer briefly lead the world in the horror genre, establishing the likes of Christopher Lee as global icons in the process. However he found the theatrical and gothic productions were left looking out moded alongside low budget Indie productions from the US. Craven took a leaf out of the social realist handbook by creating films with a low budget with a documentary feel (shaky camera work) that gave a better sense of realism.

The British Cinema industry is simply not as vastly grown as Hollywood, mainly because there is a massive difference in amount of screens and population in Britain. However to sell a film with starring role actors such as Hugh Grant and Bard Pitt is a lot easier than selling a social realism, British set drama. the $150m budget (Paramount, big 6!) Star Trek film took $75m from just under 4000 screens in its opening weekend stateside; almost £6m from 499 screens on its UK opening weekend. The US has 5 times the UK population and is wealthier to boot; UK film-makers who don't attempt to build in cross-over appeal to the US market are limiting their potential profit.

The UK Film Council was set up to fund UK film industry's to create social realism films within Britain. The main aim of the UK Film Council is to keep UK film industry's funded to create more films, because funds are hard to come by because of the 'Power 6'. However the UK government wants UK Film Industry's to keep creating social realist films to help promote reality into the way Britain is seen.

Software

This year instead of using the software I used in my AS production, iMovie HD, but instead I will be using a more advanced piece of editing software called 'Final Cut Express 4'. I have chosen to use this software because it has a more advanced editing tools collection and will allow me to add better effects.

Because I was not very advanced with the software, I decided to try a trail run at it and made a film for the English Department in my school, this required simple cutting, adding titles and adjusting sound levels, so I did not pick up too many editing skills. However after attending the Coop Film Festival, where I attended a Editing Master-class an picked up some more advanced skills including editing sound levels and adding voice overs. I am now much more advanced with the software.

Here is a page on Final Cut Express 4 showing exactly the technical features.

I have found that from working with the software and two small projects so far that they software is not that much harder to use than iMovie, despite the fact that at first it looks a lot more complicated. I have now learnt the basics of importing and cutting the frames. I am now able to create a film that does not have many complicated edits, but is a final project.

Below I will add comments on progress with the software as I learn new skills and techniques:

Wednesday 7th October: I have now learnt how to add text onto Final Cut Express 4, this is under the view screen, you can click on the drop down menu, select text, then choose the type of text you want. It is then a case of going on the edit tab and editing the text to the desired standard, and then dragging this into the time-line. 

Wednesday 14th October: Today I learnt how to quickly add transactions between two clips, and although it only adds on the default Cross-Dissolve it is a much easier and faster way to add on a transition. You simply right click in-between the clips and select add transaction. 

Friday 16th October: I have now learnt how to import the film from a tape, when first looking into Final Cut Express I found this part very difficult. This now means I do not have to use iMovie to import scenes that I have shot, and makes the editing process a lot faster. 

Wednesday 25th November: Today I came across a problem wile trying to upload from a DV tape, but by searching online the error message, I found that I could stop Final Cut Express noticing the problem during upload by going onto system preferences.  

Hardware

To record my footage I will be using equipment that I have borrowed from the Media Department in school, this means that the equipment I will be using is not to the best of quality and will not be available to me as easily as if I was using my own, but by using the equipment in the correct way and efficiently I will be able to overcome this problem.

The Camera 
In order to record my footage I will need a camera, the camera that the school has to provided to me is a  'Cannon Widescreen MV 920'. This camera is only very basic so there are not a lot of effects I can get out of the camera. The main two settings I will be using on the camera will be the White Balance to create a clear shot, and the focus to focus on a particular item during filming. 

Technical Aspects: 
Camcorder Type: Digital
Recording Format: Mini DV
Recording System: PAL
Sensor Quantity: 1
Optical Zoom: 25x
Weight: 0.38 kg

It is a very user friendly camera, and was perfect for what we needed. As well as having auto features, you can also edit the white balance, exposure and other features yourself, but we did not tend to do this too much because we did not want to loose quality in the image we where recording. The camera has zoom features which was perfect for our close-up shots. However the lighting setting on this camera is not great, there are pre-sets which determine the lighting through settings (e.g. Night, Day, Snow) so if you want a particular lighting then you would need to yse your own lighting e.g. lamps or torches. We had to make some scenes look darker but instead of doing this on the camera we edited it through Final Cut Express.

All of your footage is recorded onto a mini DV tape, and transferring it onto your computer is very easy. We simply needed a fire-wire cable which would run from the camera to the computer and using a piece of software you upload the footage. However you can also play clips through the camera as well.
 
Becoming an Expert
This will now be the second year I have used the camera, and over my time of using it, mainly through trial and error, I have really got to know the camera a lot better, and I am now able to use the camera to the best of it's ability. I have learnt how to make the image the best quality using the white balance, and using this technique it helps me to make sure diffrently liught rooms look quite similar.
 I have also learnt how to take the focus off from automatic, and play around with it to suit the shooting of my film. This will help me a lot to show emotion on faces as I will be able to focus on the face. 

The Boom Mic! 

Last year my film lost a lot of marks because the sound quality of the work was not great quality, even though on most of the footage the camera mic was turned right down. It seems that the mic on the camera I am using is a very bad quality, and for this reason the Media Department in my school invested in a Boom Mic. This means now I can focus the mic over the main source of sound, and get a much higher quality. 

Keep It Still!

We needed to use this tripod in order to keep some of our shots still, and not have a hand held look. If we just held the camera by hand then the production would not look professional unless we could evaluate a proper reason for the camera work.
 
The tripod is very easy to use, the legs extend out in order to have the camera for a low angle or a high angle shot. The camera stand also extends higher in order to get extreme high angle shots. The tripod also allows the camera to pan, pivot and tilt without having to move the tripod itself. We found this very useful on our panning shots.


Imagine...
Main to take pictures for our Blog, and for our posters, we will be using a 'Fuji film Finepix A900'.

The features of this are:

• 9.0 megapixels
• Real Photo Technology (RPT)
• Intelligent Flash
• IrSimple™
• Large 2.5" LCD screen
• Sensitivity up to ISO 800
• 10Mb internal memory
• Selectable scene positions
• USB cable

Its again, straightforward to use, simply plug in the wire that comes with the camera and import the pictures to a program on the Apple Mac or even simpler, open up the camera directory on the Mac and drag the pictures onto the Desktop Screen.