Evaluation Questions

Connecting to our Audience

In order to connect with our audience we have used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, this helps us to share our film opening with a larger audience and gain feedback...

• https://www.facebook.com/shutterfilm

• https://twitter.com/ShutterFilmZon

Editing difficulties

When editing out footage we found a number of elements difficult however there were two in particular aspects that caused us the most trouble;

1. Colour Matching:

We had to film our footage over a number of day and one element out of our control was the weather. We found that on one of the days we filmed it was cloudy and dull and on the other it was sunny and bright. This meant that the footage we got didn't match up because the colours were so different. In order to fix this problem we had to take the brighter clips and try and adjust the colours to match the other clips. We found it very difficult to match the colours exactly because of glare and exposure, however after a long time carefully testing the colours we eventually matched them enough to maintain a high level of continuity.

2. Sound:

On the days we decided to film there were high winds meaning the vast majority of the sound was low quality and un-useable. There was also a lot of background noise in some of the clips that we didn't want. In order to get rid of this we decided to mute the vast majority of the clips and add sound effects over the top. We chose realistic sound effects off iMovie and faded them in and out so that they appeared to belong. This element of the editing was very difficult, however once achieved it vastly improved the overall quality of our film opening.

Peer Feedback

After producing a final version of our film openings we held a meeting in which a number of groups, including ours, presented their films. For this occasion we created a simple questionnaire in order to receive some peer feedback on our opening.

From this questionnaire we received some very positive and useful 

feedback. 

Having looked at all the questionnaires we got handed back to us we generalised all the comments and found that overall our sub-genre (psychological horror) was clear to the audience. We were also told that the music was appropriate and fitted the opening. Everyone stated that our plot was believable and that the setting and location choice was fitting for the type of horror we were trying to create. The majority of the feedback we received stated that the slow motion turn in the tunnel and the end shot of the villain's eyes were the most successful elements of our opening. In general the only negative feedback we got was about the hug goodbye between the two characters and the dialogue as some people felt it seemed slightly awkward and forced, however we decided that it would be most  beneficial for us to keep that element as it was, in order to ensure the continuity stayed at a high quality.

Overall we got really positive feedback about our film opening and we were very happy with it.

Shutter (Final Cut)

This is our final cut of our horror opening 'Shutter' we have made improvements that were advised by other group members...

• Soundtrack
• Sound clarity
• Credits

Overall we are pleased with our final piece as we feel that we have achieved a psychological thriller in our opening.

Credits

For our credits I used a font called 'momstypewriter' I felt it gave an effect that complimented the theme of a photographer, I took inspiration from the intro of Se7en (1995) which used a typewriting front effectively to match an eerie unknown figure taking clippings and creating a scrapbook of sinister images.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/se7en/

Our Horror Soundtrack

This is the Soundtrack we used for our film opening...

The soundtrack had to create suspense and build up tension, this helps amplify the movements on screen and keep the audience immersed in the atmosphere. I used the soundtrack to "Jaws' by John Williams to get inspiration and focus on elements that make it effective. The steady increase in pace and volume heightens the tension and gives the affect of a oncoming 'doom'.

I used Apples 'GarageBand' to create the soundtrack, I used 'Cinematic' strings and a 'Grand Piano', I also gave the whole soundtrack a 'Psychedelic' sound, this gave distorted echo to the track and helped highlight its 'eerie' quality.