In todays lesson we finished our storyboard and explained the camera angles and what the characters would be doing in each shot to give us a better understanding when we come to filming our opening, as when we look at the storyboards for help when filming we have a full understanding of what we want to portray in the opening.

Our story board is very essential for our opening because for example if we started to film our opening at dusk as planned, and our group had not produced a story board then in the limited time we would have to film our opening in the correct time of day, then if would take a lot longer to decide what camera movements to use, what props to use and when and what dialogue should be added in the opening, this would leave us with an un-organised 2 minute opening produced not to our best abilities.

Whereas from the story board it gives us an idea what we aim to produce and capture from our final opening.

Pitch!

Today, us as a group presented our presentation in front of the other groups. In the presentation we included the synopsis, the characters and the camera movements and settings that we want to include in our horror opening. Our presentation was to pitch our opening to the other groups giving us an idea if our film was on sale, whether or not it would be suitable for its target audience, showing us whether or not we had created ideas and over all decisions correctly on our opening.

When the other groups who also decided to choose the horror genre as their opening, presented their pitches it was interesting to see that it was familiar to our ideas that we as a group decided to include in our own horror opening, this ensured us that we were including the correct things and made us further develop our ideas and skills that we would include in our opening. For example the camera movements, at the beginning of our opening instead of just using a long shoot or a medium-close up, we used a pan shot to emphasis our chosen genre to the audience.

In todays lesson, we watched and observed the other groups presentations and their final ideas and synopsises of their entire beginning, middle and ending of their chosen genre films, and then in full detail of their opening including camera shots, setting e.c.t.
This gave us a full understanding of other genres and stereotypes that convey them. There was not enough time to show our groups presentation and share our ideas with Mr Cramb and the other groups, so we are showing us next week.

Durring todays lesson, our group finished our draft of our script for the opening to our horror which we called "The Ouija Board" we started and finished our presentation which will be showing Mr Cramb and the other groups are over all ideas on our opening this will include:
the setting
the characters
the props
the synopsis
the script
the camera movements
that we as a group decided for our final opening.

Within todays lessons, our group completed our synopsis and decided and listed the characters and their personalitlies and props needed to complete our opening to our horror film. With a more clear idea of what our opening is going to include and look like, we are more confident on how we can achieve the best grade possible on it.
Our synopsis gave us the complete narrative, letting us explore and develope on our opening planning within the next couple of lessons.

We researched the elements to a good horror genre and we developed on the ideas to ensure that our opening would portray a horror theme to the audience. From the research we got a good understanding of what the characters personalities and appearances would need to be like to be most effective in our opening, we considered this as we chose our final characters for our opening.

Preliminary Task
Before half term we were given an outline of what to do and include in our preliminary task. The task had to include someone opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. It also had to demonstrate a match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule and we could choose wheatheror not it included any dialogue between the characters but our group decided to include dialogue as the filming lasted for 2 mins, therefore it would be hard not to include the characters interacting.
Before we could decide on a script, we recorded our ideas in a storyboard, making it easier to shoot as we new exactly what we were to film. After we completed the storyboard and had an exact idea on what out preliminary task would include, we chose where to shoot and what characters and props we were going to include, we then filmed our preliminary task ensure we included all the aspects.
When we had our first lesson after Half term we then edited our footage (in imovie) which allowed us to crop and edit any scenes we wanted/didnt want to include. We then evaluated our task which highlighted any faults with the task. From the evalution of our short 2 minute film, we noticed that we needed to obey the 180 degree rule and crop out any unnessary back ground props by using close-ups and medium close-ups, also we decided that for our final film opening we would use a tripod to prevent any shacking of the camera whislt filming. Over all we were happy with a lot of our footage and had clear ideas on what we would include when filming our final opening coursework to make it most affective.
We were also especially pleased with the outcome of our establishing shot and noticed what we would include next time.

In todays lessons we edited our preliminary filming task, and we created our synopsis for our final film, this gave us more creative and detailed ideas and an overall view of what we want our film opening to contain and portray to its audience. We recorded our ideas as a mind map allowing us to elaborate more on our ideas. we came up with ideas on where would film our opening and what props and characters we would need to include to make it include the criteria we were given for our film to include, allowing us to receive the best grades possible.

Institutional Context
As a group we chose to look into UK successful film studies such as Pinewood studios. After we researched and we each had a clear understanding of successful British film studios we put all of our findings into a detailed presentation. We chose to use Pinewood studios as they included films filmed there such as James Bond films, this was interesting to research and present in our presentation, we explained why we chose this studio and explained thoroughly in our presentation which we had to present to the other groups and Mr Cramb. Below are a few slides from the guide we produced on this company.

Today, our group started on our synopsis and listed some ideas that we each thought would be most affective to include in our opening, giving us a breif idea on what should be included and what our opening would eventually look like.

British film powerpoint

Analysis of results powerpoint from questionnaires

In Fridays lesson, as we presented our powerpoints on our specific genre our group chose which is Horror/Thriller, Mr Cramb observed our presentation and fed back to us at the end, his comments which were helpful and benefical towards our group. Things we need to include to allow our coursework to be more accurate are:
-we need to give out more surverys up to 50 more
-we need to have atleast 5 surverys on each age group and a valid reason
-we also need to compare our own local research with the relevant research.
Taking mental notes and paying attention to other groups doing the same genre could benefit out own group and ideas.
-Finally we need to check our 3 whole film analysis and 5 opening film analysis against the surverys we produced.

In todays lesson we presented our presentations that we finished in yesterdays lesson. From our lesson today we gathered the information from our powerpoint and charts to finalize our target audience and other elements that we needed to know for when we create our Horror film opening. Now we are ready to create our research the textual analysis.

It is Thursday 20th January, in todays lessons we created a powerpoint on the results from our Horror questionnaires that members of the public completed, allowing us to gather the results and come to final decisions on our genre. We created charts and analysed the results helping us find out useful information such as who our target audience is and their expectations of our opening to our Horror film giving us a better understanding for creating it. We finished our summary finding powerpoint successfully and will be showing it tomorrow.

Today is Friday 15th January, in todays lesson Mr Cramb checked over our draft questionnaires and discussed with us what we needed to include or take out, this helped us a lot with how to improve our questionnaire to make it most effective for when people come to fill them out, with the results from them they can help our group come to a final decision on our end opening of our Thriller film. Im excited!