Evaluation

     Part II: Representation

Part III: Distributors 

Parts IV & V: Audiences

Part VI: Technology

Part VII: Preliminary task to full project

Audience feedback results

Click for audience feedback results

Audience feedback questionnaire

link to feedback questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1b5YWUzVVkrwznuPFhBX258jG1vidN-2a9RyAw-0JGQM/viewform

Final Film- Penance (YouTube Link)

Final Film- Penance (YouTube Link)

Script- Final edit

SFX - Ghostly appearance

Special Effects - Ghost

There are a few different ways to create a translucent (ghostly) effect. The most common way I found was this:

"Creating a ghost effect for video is quite simple, as long as you have an editing package capable of using layers and setting layer opacity.

First of all, set the camera up on a tripod and frame the shot. Shoot the scene empty (without the ghost), then shoot the scene again with the ghost actor. It's very important that both versions (takes) of the shot are framed identically, so don't move the camera at all. The background also needs to be still.

Import both takes of the shot into your editing program (Adobe Premiere in this case). Place the empty shot on the first video track and the ghost shot on the next track.

Set the opacity of the ghost shot to around 30%, or whatever setting achieves the best result."

This is different video editing software which could be a bit of a problem, but I think the principle of it is transferable. 

Flashback Special Effects

Flashback Special Effects

Portraying a past point in time in films can be done in several different ways and using different effects to show the audience the difference in the scene they are watching. This can be done in several different ways:

• Blurring the image
• Showing it deliberately monochrome
• Add a misty border around the edge of the screen
• Apply an echo or other sound effect to everyone's voice

Examples:

In Big Fish, all of the flashbacks have shots with more brightly-colored objects in them and a slight glowing effect on the characters' faces.

In Ciao! Manhattan when Susan Superstar tells stories of her time in New York, the flashbacks appear in cool, glamorous black and white.

At the beginning of Kill Bill Vol. 1, the flashback scene of the Bride in the church is shown in black and white. 

The 'Jacob's Ladder' party scene is shot to be disorientating and strange, and gives a frantic air to the scene as odd things are scene moving quickly.

Props

Props

The only prop necessary is the ring, as the rest is just setting and costuming. 

To fit the idea of the ring being old and abandoned, it doesn't need to cost very much money so probably will not stretch our budget. I can have a look at second hand shops or online to find something suitable, (probably brass or gold).

I found this on the site 'Etsy' that specialises in second hand or handmade products. This costs £1.99, and has the sort of look that we are looking for, appearing quite faded and old. 

This is different that what is written in the script, but has a unique sort of look about it and seems quite strange and as if it fits in a horror genre. It does however cost a lot more at £8.28. 

This is a lot like the first one in terms of being old and vintage looking, and is also cheap at £1.99. 

This is a more simplistic choice and probably the sort of thing we will chose to use. It is more subtle, and has that old, worn look to it. It is also very cheap at £1.64. 

Distributors- Warner or Warped?

Distributors 

Warner Bros.:

Warner Bros. is a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment company and a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment and their related businesses. A Time Warner Company, Warner Bros. Entertainment stands at the forefront of every aspect of the entertainment industry from feature films to television, home entertainment/DVD, animation, product and brand licensing and interactive entertainment. .

In 2012, the Warner Bros. Pictures Group grossed $4.3 billion at the worldwide box office ($1.66 billion domestic, $2.67 international) with both its domestic and international divisions crossing the billion-dollar mark for a 12th consecutive year, a feat unmatched by any other studio. The Pictures Group has exceeded $4 billion globally for four consecutive years, also a milestone no other studio has ever achieved. Despite challenging market conditions, Warner Home Video was, once again, the industry’s leader, with an overall 21 percent marketshare in total DVD and Blu-ray sales. 

"Warner Bros. Pictures produces and distributes a wide-ranging slate of some 18-22 films each year, employing a business paradigm that mitigates risk while maximizing productivity and capital. Warner Bros. Pictures either fully finances or co-finances the films it produces and maintains worldwide distribution rights. It also monetizes its distribution and marketing operations by distributing films that are totally financed and produced by third-parties. Among the films on Warner Bros. Pictures’ 2013 slate are Jack the Giant Slayer (NLC), The Great Gatsby, The Hangover Part III, Man of Steel, Pacific Rim, 300: Rise of an Empire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (NLC).

Warner Bros. is a very large company with many companies belonging to it. It typically produces very big budget film that are almost always guaranteed large profits. Our film would be smaller budget and for a smaller audience, therefore Warner Bros. wouldn't be the right company for the production. 

Warp Films:

Warp Films is an independent film production company based in Sheffield & London, UK, with a further affiliated company Warp Films Australia based in Melbourne, Australia.

The first film, Chris Morris' My Wrongs#8245-8249 & 117, was shot in 2002. It won the award for Best Short Film at the 2003 BAFTA Film Awards and became the first short film DVD single in the UK market. bThrough the star of My Wrongs, Paddy Considine, Herbert met director Shane Meadows and asked them to generate an idea for a film. Herbert raised the funding and the result was Warp Films debut feature, Dead Man's Shoes, directed by Shane Meadows in 2004. 

Warp Films breakout success came with Shane Meadows’ This Is England, the story of Shaun, a boy who is adopted by a local skinhead gang after his father is killed in the Falklands war. Since its release in early 2007 it has gained many awards including the Best Film at the British Independent Films Awards, the Special Jury Prize at the Rome Film Festival and Best British Film at the BAFTAs.

In 2010, Warp Films produced Chris Morris’ debut feature Four Lions, a satirical comedy drama following a group of homegrown Islamic terrorists from Sheffield, England. The film was a critical and box office success, achieving impressive numbers at the box office on its opening weekend, generating the highest site average of all the new releases (£5,292) and making a total of £609,000. As of 8 August 2010, Four Lions grossed £2,932,366 at the UK box office. The film was nominated for two BAFTA awards; it won the ‘Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer’ BAFTA award for Chris Morris.

Warp Films / Warp X productions, Tyrannosaur, Kill List and Submarine were nominated for a total of 18 awards at the 2011 British Independent Film Awards.

Warp Films would be a more appropriate distributor of our film because it is a company that produces independent films with smaller budgets, and would be more fitting for a small budget horror. Fans of Warp Productions would be more likely to watch our film. 

Reviews for Similar Films

Reviews for Similar Films

Drag Me To Hell:

"Drag Me to Hell is a sometimes funny and often startling horror movie. That is what it wants to be, and that is what it is."    

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times


"Raimi's Drag Me to Hell does everything we want a horror film to do: It is fearsomely scary, wickedly funny and diabolically gross, three stomach-churning states that argue for taking a pass on the $10 box of popcorn."

Betsy Sharkey

Los Angeles Times

"The looseness Raimi allows himself here results in an especially joyous kind of filmmaking, the sort where the filmmaker's delight in scaring us (and making us laugh) becomes part of the movie's fabric."

Stephanie Zacharek

Salon.com

"Inspired by the tone of B-movie scare epics of the '50s, they've made a slick, mostly predictable homage-pastiche that itself rates about a B-."

Richard Corliss

TIME Magazine

"A movie that is slickly accomplished in its own dark arts, and one that never once resorts to the recent nihilistic faddishness for torture-porn. It will be a huge hit. The re-invention of horror begins here."

Kevin Maher

Times [UK]

The Ring:

"For a remake and a modern Hollywood horror, it's pretty good."

Film4

"A stylish Hollywood remake of the Japanese horror sensation that unfortunately has little personality of its own."

Todd McCarthy

Variety

"Not everything it might have been, then, but decent enough to have you tracking down the original."

Trevor Johnston

Time Out

"It's disappointing, losing most of the original's flavour, while retaining and amplifying what was muddled and unsatisfying about it in the first place."

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian [UK]

"It's a treasure hunt reduced to isolated jolts and more clues than you can shake a stick at (every fly on the wall and child's drawing bristles with unholy significance), and an utter waste of Watts."

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

The Shining:

"Deeply scary and strange."

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian [UK]

"Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions... and also makes you jump."

Ian Nathan

Empire Magazine

"With everything to work with, director Stanley Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller."

Variety Staff

Variety

"A feeling of deep-rooted evil runs through every frame in mesmerising fashion. Hell, even the dizzyingly-patterned carpets are somewhat hypnotic."

Stephen Carty

Flix Capacitor

"As in 2001, Kubrick likes ghost stories more than I do. And he gives me enough else, in the way of acting and bizarrely beautiful surroundings, to keep me happy."

Robert Hatch

The Nation

The Eye (2008):

"With every twist of the second-hand plot telegraphed far in advance, you don't need to be clairvoyant to see where this is going."

Neil Smith

BBC

"Effectively creepsome until it bogs down somewhat in plot explication."

Dennis Harvey

Variety

"Alba simply isn't good enough to carry this kind of movie, and lacks the presence to counter the major deficiencies of a weak and feeble ghost story."

Film4

"There are a couple of effective scares, but this feels like a retread too far. Enough with J-horror already - let's do something new."

Helen OHara

Empire Magazine

"It's all based on the creepy little Chinese film Gin gwai, an atmospheric spine-tingler that, we're sad to say, is considerably more frightening than this tame effort."

Orlando Parfitt

IGN Movies UK