Idea for a Film Poster

Just one example for a film poster that could be used within marketing the film. I decided to stick to the colours of red and black just to the little child's red hat and mainly their attires consisting of only black  pieces. The two colours I felt connoted how the film is structured around mentality signifies that the film may offer scenes that are emotionally disturbing.  Additionally the complexion of both the two individuals is to signify the purity that lies within them. I chose to separate the pictures at the bottom to connote both their disconnection within reality and world they have within their minds. I placed an effect over the image to represent an outer connection with a spiritual force. One other connotation of this effect is that it appears to look like scratching or lines going in various directions. This connotes how the mind set of sister Judith is lost within numerous directions and shows how her mind is unclear  but shows the frustration she has within her, as not one line goes in one clear direction. The choice of text was BELLMT. I chose this due to eerie atmospheric appearance it had when I started to type in it , as well as the additional symbol which appears over the 'y'. This symbol connotes how the lexis 'purity' does not have the original definition that many would associate with it i.e. Clarity. There's something much more sinister/ uncleansed about it. This is the meant to initially  intrigue the viewer into considering why the symbol has been placed there.

Purity Questionnaire results: closed questions



Question 1a was ' Have you watched a psychological thriller at some point within 2016?', 97% stated that they had and the remaining 3% said they had not.  From the following up question I was able to see a correlation between the genre and the amount of individuals that saw the genre in film. This allowed me to understand that our controversial film would appeal to a wide audience within the film market and would therefore attract paying customers.

From Question 2a) it established which genres seemed to have the greater appeal other the other genres. 26% of my 40personsmaple said that 'psychological thriller' was their favourite genre that they mostly watched in cinemas or on DVD. However surprisingly only 2% said that they watched 'action'. Typically action and Superhero films do allot better within the film industry as their narratives are more chronological and target a winder demographic audience as most tend to be PG or U. From this result it give my group positive insurance in that our film 'Purity' would have an already pre-established audience.  

From Question 3a) the results were vastly positive. Films that target to subvert the norm of what is shown within films tend to only target a niche market. However these results show that this growing subversion within films are being a new norm and are interesting a winder demographic audience.

On the following up question 3b)' extra space for any additional comments'. One individual who will remain anonymous stated ' I think its wonderful and fresh to see films highlighting such taboo topics. Definitely a film I would consider watching. From this we were able to establish that due to out film offering controversial themes, this would not limit the growth and success of out film, as only 5%stated this would be an issue.

From Question 4a) it allowed me to get an insight to whether the film title 'purity' actually denoted that the film was on the lines of a Psychological thriller. This also helped myself ad my group feel confident in that our film had the right groundings to attract both out target audience of 15 and to attract fans who were intrigued into watching psychological thrillers.

On the following up question: 4b) 'Can you explain why you either chose 'yes' or 'no'. One individual who will remain anonymous(due to confidentiality) stated 'it indicates that maybe 'purity' doesn't have the simple connotation of 'pure'. It leaves me wondering to what is seen as pure?'. From this comment we had set out what he intended to do: intrigue. Many psychological horrors set out to leave the viewer unsure at first and this is what gets the viewer to watch the full film.

In conclusion, if I was to conduct a questionnaire again I would certainly broaden my recipients to over 40. This is due to that a sample of  40 is not necessarily a reliable sample due to the small size. Additionally I would also offer more questions, even though this would be more timely the results I would get back would generate allot wider and more useful results. Initially giving myself and my team more criticism and positives to what we needed to change within the  film and what to keep the same.    Overall I feel the questionnaire that I handed out offered the subject to actually put across their opinion as well as answer short closed questions, if time was an issue for them. The results also generated enough information for myself and my team members to see whether our film met all or most of our intentions and whether it would be a success.



Puirty Questionnaire:

This questionnaire contains 4 dominant questions that I distributed to 40 individuals of different ages, genders and social class. This was to ensure that I was able to gain results from a large demographic and therefore my results that I collected would be more reliable, rather than targeting a specific age group for instance. Using both opened ended and closed ended questions allowed me the chance to get both quantitative date and qualitative data. As  rather then just asking simple 'yes or no' questions I gave recipients the chance to express their personal feelings and thoughts. This enabled me to get a real understanding for if the film would be able to be successful as well as suitable for the Psychological Thriller genre we had initially anticipated using.  Thus, this may give the subject a more interactive experience as their input is going towards the final product.

Conformation letter signed.

Due to having a child who is 6 years old, we needed to have consent from a legal parent or guardian. This is vastly important as it ensures that measures are in place to safeguard the welfare of the  child who is under 18. It also ensures that their involvement does not cause them to suffer any unnecessary psychological or physical harm or distress/anxiety. 

The terms ‘under 18s’ and ‘young people’ denote individuals who have not reached their 18th birthday. The term ‘under 16s’ denotes individuals who have not reached their 16th birthday. The term ‘children’, denotes individuals who are under 15 i.e. not reached their 15th birthday. Therefore we had to really take great consideration for the young child which therefore we tried to tailor our dialogue to consist of non offensive language which might disturb the child or if language was present that had offence language, the child would not be filming that day. 

Location- St Marys Chruch

 

Initially we were wanting to find a church that we were able to film in due to one of our dominant themes; religion. However we were unaware if a church would let us film our A-Level project due to the narrative being vastly controversial. However we were kindly allowed film in a local church and this became our primary filming location. The church is situated within the middle Barnsley, which is just around 1 minute away from our college building. This offered great practicality we were able to get allot of filming done within our lesson time and we able to re-use the church setting when ever we needed to film(but out of college hours and within college hours). 

Being able to film in the church was a wonderful experience. For myself i was able appreciate the historical surroundings and inners of the church. Additionally in regards to filming, it aloud us to create a more realistic narrative, an immersive experience for the viewer and aloud for the continuity of the film to flow. Without the use of the church we would have not been able to create such a realistic narrative or iconography of religious symbols. In addition the connection between sister Judith and Father Abraham to the church and how they have devoted their lives and soul would have been tricky to conquer without being able to access the church. It also aloud us to incorporate some beautiful parts of Barnsley, which in recent years have tended to go unnoticed. 

Question one. 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Within pre-production myself and my group all suggested some genre ideas and themes that we would have preferred to  incorporate which  both subverted or converted to the norms within whats shown within films. We all suggested that for the genre a psychological-thriller would be more in our interest. Therefore from our group work we were able to narrow down the possible genres and settled for our genre to be a 'psychological-thriller' as we all were in favour for this.  A psychological thriller is thriller story which emphasizes the psychology of characters that tend to have allot of prevalence and their emotional instability. Additionally in terms of classification, the category is a sub-genre of the thriller category. From this we researched into what's common within psychological-thrillers and found that they mainly have non-linear narratives, have a dissolving sense of reality, moral ambiguity and complexity within relationships between obsessive and pathological characters. This also focus upon the emotional state of a certain individual that has experienced some kind of mental illness, mental break down, physical out of boy experience or has experienced criminal insanity.  This helped shaped out narrative vastly as we were able to understand what would attract the target audience and how we could class the genre as a psychological thriller.

Within the beginning of the film, it focuses on the use of flashbacks and a montage of shots which are to infer that the story is from the emotional consciousness of Sister Judith. Therefore we felt that a non-linear narrative would be vastly realistic as the mind is naturally fragmented and sometimes can dissolution it's subject into believing that something is reality when really its just an imagination of the human mind. The relationship between sister Judith and father Abraham we feel  foreshows emotional instability, as both characters are some what mentally unstable, or have been socialised into traditional norms. As sister Judith feels attracted to females more than she does males.
Due to her being brought up within a heteronormative ideology she  feels she is somewhat not blessed and therefore she seeks guidance within Father Abrahams church. Within this she is romantically  attracted to sister Mary rather than father Abraham( which he assumes she is attracted to him seen as he realises he is blessed with holy looks and has added to his ego.). The complexity within this relationship troubles all counterparts and offers much ambiguity to whether sister Judith does find Father Abraham or if she feels vulnerable due to her troubled past.  

screen shot from the part of the montage at the beginning

screen shot from the part of the montage at the beginning

screen shot from the part of the montage at the beginning

The montage at the beginning is accompanied by a childs laughter and  a childs melody, which is typically sung by a parent or guardian, as well as the sound of the incidental no-diegetic church bells that are played in rhythm with the montage of shots.We feel this has captured an eerie but pathological themes, that are traditionally typical of psychological thriller as they connote that there is more to the plot and may leave the viewer intrigued. The non-diegetic sound is also to demonstrate that the prominent themes within the film are a mothers love and the possibility of a child. We initially took this idea from the film; Mama(2013). Which highlighted how the maternal instincts of a mother can lie within someone even when they do or do not have a child. 

Close up of father Abrahams religious iconography(cross). This use of the cross is featured over the title 'purity'. This is to connote how the film will be somewhat centralised around religion.

two shot to capture both sister Mary and Sister Judith who have just been interrupted by father Abraham due to their frequent close encounters 

two shot of sister Judith and father Abraham within the church

Low angle shot of the church windows. This is to connote how the the church has a dominance over the individuals subject to attending it.

poster from the film MAMA: highlighting how the mother(right hand corner) is over protective and her mental stability relies heavily on the child that is not hers.

Add caption

The mise-en-scene was an important aspect of out film and to authenticate this we used various religious props such as the cross that father Abrahams is wearing, the religious costumes of the sisters and the father and we also we able to the film in our local church. This was to add more realistic elements to the film and for the viewer to be able to get the most possible engagement that we could offer.  

Letter of conformation (unsigned)

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? \

Within pre-production the use of technologies was utterly vital due to elements such as background research,being able to create pie charts on the questionnaires myself and my group had created. For instance due to the proliferation of phones being able to access online books through the internet and using websites such as; wikipedia,youtube,IMBD rather than using books allowed us up-to-date information, new, prior and upcoming films which matched or had essences of a psychological theme/genre. Additionally when we were researching possible films we had to store the information on blogger as a post. Without the use of technologies i wouldn't have been able to access past blogger post or i would have been drastically limited to the ways i could access the research; i.e. by logging on a computer or laptop. However through my mobile device i am able to access' blogger' 24/7 from any where.

screen shot to highlight how the use of the internet aloud myself to save work and be able to access it from any device that could access the internet.

Within the production stage of our film, we used a Panasonic JCV 270, a tripod and an audio recorder. At first i assumed that these devices would be rather uncouth to use. However once i had a brief introduction on how to use them and what to press, the actually filming was drastically comfortable. Through the easy use of the audio recorder especially it saved a vast amount of time which aloud us to edit more of the film and try different shots when using the camera. An additional factor which was beneficial was the tripod as it allowed the camera to have stability, which in turn helped to create verisimilitude of the sections being filmed and limited the possible side effects;  shaking of the camera or getting damaged. Additionally the use of the tripod allowed us to get great death when filming particular angle i.e. low angle, high angle. 

print screen from the final 2 minute film 'Purity'; Low angle shot of Father Abraham

During post-production we uploaded our filming onto an editing software called premiere pro CC. This was my first time using Premiere pro cc . I learnt a variety of techniques which i can now use within future filming. I learnt how to integrate both music and an internal monologue over shots, how to create opening credits, add various effects onto the shots and reverse shots to appear distorted. I thought that using premiere pro CC has numerous advantages such as it offered a variety of features, allowed for all shots to be uploaded at once and you were able to view separate parts of the film at the same time. This was drastically useful when wanting to create a cross-fade or a graphic match. However the Editing software required prior knowledge on how to edit films and this delayed the timing for my group to finally create a finished a product and edit the film, which at times became utterly frustrating. 

Question 5

Question 7.

Question 7.

 

Question 6.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Within the pre production of our film technology was a vital process in the construction leading to the film Purity. When finding secondary research me and my group all had to research different films to get information. When doing this we had to keep a log of our information on a Word document or PowerPoint for example. To do this we needed key ICT skills to log everything. While getting research we used websites such as IMBD, YouTube, Wikipedia and ArtofTheTitle to find key information on specific genres and films which linked with our film. We chose to do this method as it was very time efficient for us and due to the proliferation of smart phones and devices we were able to find information fast, a lot easier than using books.

Within the production stage of our film we used a Panasonic hcv 270 and a tripod. The tripod was beneficial as it stopped the camera from shaking, resulting in helping the verisimilitude of our film. We used a variety of different shots within the cinematography of the film as we felt we needed to satisfy our audience this way, however within some of our shots as a group we decided that we could have used less zoom in to stop the shot looking blurred. Due to the minimal resources we had we were unable to do more challenging shots such as birds eye view or tracking shots, I believe if we had the resources to complete this then our film would make more sense to the demographic.

Finally within the post-production of our film we edited our footage on a software called premiere pro CC, which we were all new to. At first this software was a bit daunting and we had to watch carefully to learn the techniques needed. This did take a while as it was trial and error for our group. After learning how to cut and add effects to our footage I felt that everyone in our group became very familiar with it fast. This helped us complete our film a lot faster.

Question 5.

Question 5. from charlottelilyj

Media evaluation - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product (question 7)

The preliminary exercise was the first time I had used a camera and the editing software, premiere pro CC, within it we demonstrated match on action, shot-reverse-shot and the 180 degree rule. We successfully incorporated this and transferred some of the skills we learnt in the preliminary exercise over to our media product, for example:

 We have also used various other shots in the construction of our media product, for example: a POV shot, low and high angle shots to connote dominance and vulnerability which is an important element of our film, zoom ins, long shots, medium shots and close ups.
POV:

The use of zoom:

 Our use of the editing software has been more extensive during the construction of the media product and we think that we have improved in the respect that our film has continuity and runs smoother than the preliminary task. We included: an opening title sequence with negative editing that presented the names in white, connoting a central theme of our film - purity. During this segment we used rhythmic editing with the music whereby every negative was accompanied by sharp eerie music. We also addded a graphic match that we think added continuity to our film of which its effect was enhanced by the cross fade.
Graphic match:

Cross fade:

We also used elliptical editing as we have a non linear storyline, the action is not sequenced  in a chronological order, for example the film begins at the end and the middle is a retelling of events that have previously occurred. However, there are various things we could have done better. We could have been more considerate with the camera on the tripod to reduce the amount of zoom in some shots. Morever, I think that we could have used a variety of others shots that would have improved our film, for example a tracking shot and an aerial shot but we didn't have the means to do them, especially the latter.

Question 4. who would be the audience for your media product.

The development of our film

6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There were many different kinds of technologies we used throughout the production of our media product. When planning our film we used blogger in order to plan as a group what sort of thing our product would be and how it would all work.The use of prezi and power point presentations have also been used in order to plan and display ideas in a more interesting and interactive way. I found Prezi a little difficult to work with as I wasn't very skilled at it but I believed it was important to help explain the development of our product. 
 It helps explain our thought processes and shows the idea in its infancy as as it has grown and changed so much. 

These technologies have helped us research our product and come to a final group idea, even if this was a late idea, on our final product and what it would be as a group with all the research to back out choices up. 
When writing our scrpit we used CELTX This was a new technology again for me. It was easy to operate benefitting our group as new writers.

Post filming of our film we used premier pro in order to edit our film. While I personally found it a little difficult to use I have learnt over the process of our product production to do so.
We filmed using a Camera Panasonic HCV 270. I was the primary camera man for this project and I found it easy to get the hand of this camera. I also enjoyed using it and learning these techniques as I went along.
 As it had turned out we had filmed a lot more footage that we needed in the end or were allowed to use. This meant that it was hard to cut it down, premier pro let us put what we needed together and enabled us to cut it down. While this changed the structure and overall the idea of our film a lot from the actual script and original ideas it also gave us a new look on our film. It also had many features in order to help us make out film much more visually appealing and actually help us attract our audience. 
Freesound.org also enabled us to put the attractive and eerie music affects in our film which again was a big attraction for our audience. Overall I believe that the technological side of our film was really successful part of the development of our product.
For our evuation I typed up my questions using word and I also used paint to create a mind map to show my evaluation in diffrent mediums.