Bullying in Schools

Within my short trailer the issue of bullying arises as the vampire girl is bullied by two girls, they follow her into the forest and she then gets her revenge on them by capturing one of the bullies. The audience become aware of this as they can see the girls pink bag thrown amongst the leafs and the other girl running away from forest.

Children will bully for a number of reasons ;

Children may be frustrated and will become resentful because the source of their difficulty has not been identified; child feels they have to perform at a level that is required of them by the school.

The child bullying has been bullied them-self meaning the responsibility adults hold for their child have failed in their duty of care. The child tends to slowly and reluctantly start exhibiting aggressive behaviours because they feel it’s the only way to survive in an bullying-entrenched environment.

Either there is no role model or the child has parents whom are poor role models, as they themselves may not have had the opportunity to learn behaviour skills.

Abuse and neglect may be present within the family household causing the child to rebel as a means of escaping. The child will feel inferior and un-loved if they are not cared for.

Its easy for a child to fit in with the wrong crowd particularly within a school environment, they feel the need to conform and find a sense of identity.  Those that socialize amongst the a ‘bad’ group of people usually indicates that they have low self-esteem.

Bullying in schools can include:

Verbal harassment
Hitting, hair pulling and kicking
Teasing and name calling
 Spreading rumours
damaging posessions
Intimidating

Plan of Filming 1

I have decided to use 2 girls to play the role of the bully characters, rather than two boys and two girls. Although the original idea shows diversity between the two sexes it also means that it’s harder to get that many people to commit. However I will now research the issues involving bullying between the female sexes, this is a very serious common problem that happens day to day in social environment’s, in particular schools.

I have arranged to continue filming on Friday 12^th at 3:20 outside of my school and told all actors to meet me at a certain place. I will bring the costumes and makeup into school in the morning and leave them in a secure place for me to collect and use at the end of the day.

My goals:

To shoot the opening scene where the bullies (2 girls) are walking out of the school gate whilst following the vampire girl whom is in front walking slowly along the paved path. I wish to get an establishing shot of the gate, fence, grassy embankment and paved path, along with the three characters.

To film the tracking shot of the vampire girls feet walking and then building up to a pace.

The Bullies feet running as they do so out of the forest

The back of the bullies as they run out of the forest. I may run whilst filming as this will then come across
as a point of view shot, because the camera focus will be jolting and unsteady.

 Finally take full length/ profile pictures of my characters which I may use when producing my promotional creations and it will also establish what they appear to look like in case I forgot when next filming other scenes involving them. 

Filming Birds eye view shot

Over the weekend I began to start filming. I placed a pink bag amongst the wet leaves in my back garden, I was aiming for this particular shot to represent how one of the girl bullies has been captured and the vampire girl (main character) has repelled the bag. I wanted the bag to look as though it been aimlessly chucked in the forest. The reason I decided to make this shot Birds-Eye view is because the bag signifies the girly-girl aspect, the colour is sickly sweet which contrasts nicely with the leaves. The leaves consist of dark brown colours these highlight the theme of secrecy as there is a dark secret that is yet to be uncovered. This is shown through the positioning of the leaves as some are scattered over the bag and the pink surface is not completely covered , suggesting the Girls secret is about to be revealed.

The high angle represents how she had no idea about what was coming. Similar to the angle her expectations were also “Up in the air”, the circling around the bag emphasises the extent to which it is a symbol of what has happened.

Here are the videos of what I had filmed;

This footage is  unsteady as I found it difficult I had to hold the camera vertically up in the air , as I  walked around the bag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX85KNUhCFg

Again this filming is also unsteady . To achieve the birds-eye view angle I decided to set up 4 chairs around the pink bag, I held the camera at shoulder height as I stepped onto each of the chairs , going in a clockwise direction and then anticlockwise. This was more difficult than being on the ground as I wasn't as stable and found myself concentrating on my balance rather than the actual filming hence why the filming was very unfocused .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yhf6-e-jcM

In the next video I took I decided to move the camera in a circular pathway a lot slower, this enabled me to achieve a better focus that than i had done in the previous videos, although it still was not perfect. the chairs situated around the bag and my feet can be seen as I'm standing upon the chair. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/dancergal1909#p/a/u/0/XmX9CvL-5y4

Music and Sound effects in Horror films

Music and sound effects in Horror Film

Classic Horror Music

Orchestral music is the most characteristic type of horror film music and has been used since the birth of the genre, even today it is the most popular type of music to be used in Horror films, thrillers and adventure films. One reason for this type of music being so popular is the open-endedness and great dynamic range of genre allows the composer to follow the events of a film as he is able to vary tones within a composition. Another reason is that its very neutral and appeals to a wide audience.

Modern Alternative Horror Music

This type of music generally tends to use synth-based and industrial. A good example of this is Blair Witch 2 which uses alternative Rock and metal music. This particular section works well as it is dark, brooding and suits the visual style of the film. Other directors take this concept of modern music a whole step further and replace classical orchestral music with music that the audience do not expect to hear in a Horror film.  American Psycho mainly used American 80’s rock and pop music, to me this would highlight the Horror element even further as it adds suspense and makes the audience feel tense as it’s not the kind of music they imagine to be included making them wonder what else is to expected.

Musical Cues

Audiences will recognize a certain audio sequence within a Horror Film. For example a long eerie musical build-up containing strings or horns as the victim approaches a closed door , followed by a violent orchestral hit as the door is opened by them and they discover what is hidden behind it. 

The Auditory Symbol

Many Horror films have a melody or sound serving as a symbol to portray the monster in a particular film. This is usally achieved by extracting a small portion of one of the films prominent musical score or characteristic sounds and playing them whenever the "main character (monster)" is around.  This then allows the film makers to inntroduce the monster to the audience with a visual representation.

Sound Effects

Both Music and sound effects are directly linked to visuals the visuals of a film.  Sound effects tend to be tied even closer than music in regards to the events in a film , they create otr adjust a certain mood or atmosphere. In most cases these effects are applied to intensify and mark direct movements such as movements and impacts , majority of sound is very exaggerated this is so the audience become more aware of the effects.

Auidence Feedback

I handed out a set of 15 questionnaires consisting of 10 questions to a range of different people, in order to gain some audience feedback, here are my results. 

Q1) What age are you?

12-15    16-19   20-30   30+
1             11          2       1

I found that the majority of the questionnaires completed were done so by those between the ages of 16-19 so they were all teenagers. I have come to the conclusion that I will now aim my short trailer at these ages; considering I am of this age myself it may be easier to create the trailer so the audience can relate to it.

Q2) What genre do you enjoy watching?(tick 2)

Horror       Sci-fi          Action        Comedy       Romantic/chick flick     Thriller

5                  1                   3                 12                            4                        5

Participants were asked to tick two out of the three genres available, the highest amount of ticks came out as Comedy and the lowest was sci-fi. From these results I found that often teenagers want to watch something that excites them, isn’t too complicated to understand and is overall something they can laugh about , whilst still being frightened at the same time due to the Thriller and Horror aspects.

Q3) Would you rather the main character Male or Female?

Male      Female    Not bothered

7                5                  3

From the results for question 3 it suggests that more people would prefer to see a male as the main character as apposed to a female. This may be because they like to see the male as the hero and the female as a damsel in distress. However three people also stated that they were not bothered about what gender the main character could possibly be.

Q4) What qualities would you want this character to have?(tick 2)

Charming       Cute     Funny        Athletic        Unfit          Young       Old      Ugly       Pretty

1                       5             10               4                   2             4                3             0             3

More participants ticked that the main character needed to have the quality of being funny as there was total of 10 ticks. This suggests that the target audience want to watch an actor who is comical whether this is through dark humour or comedy and parody is an area I will research into.  Nobody ticked ‘Ugly’ which implies that they want to see a character whom is nice to look at, stereotypically in horror films many characters are disgusting and gruesome , however due to my results I will challenge this stereotype and use someone attractive to play the role of the main character.

Q5) What features would you like to see included in a trailer?

Cliff-Hangers   Flash-backs   Voiceovers   On screen text   Music   Names of Actors/directors

      6                        0                     3                   1                     4                              2

Majority of people that completed my questionnaire selected Cliff-Hangers as the feature they would most likely to see in a trailer. This suggests that the target audience want to have something to think about when they watch a trailer, as a cliff hanger gives them a clue about what the film may consist of without giving away the whole of the film.  Nobody ticked Flash-Backs this maybe because people would probably get confused by seeing these in a trailer before watching and following the film first.

Q6) Would you like to see real-life situations?

 Yes     No

12         3

More participants stated how ‘yes’ they would like the trailer to include real-life situations, this may be because they would then be able to relate the film in some way. Real life situations will occur within my short trailer as we see bullying outside of a school although unnatural situations are involved also because the trailer consists of vampire’s.

Q7) What is your occupation?

Nearly all the people that completed my questionnaire were students, in total 9. Two were teachers and 3 others had others forms of jobs. This meant that a lot of the results from students were the same, if  i re-did the questionnaire i would hand them out to a larger sample and variety of people, this way my results would have probably been more valid.

Q8) Which title excites you the most? (tick1)

Victoria        The Vampire Runner            Dead Runner          Lonely Death

    0                                    1                                               12                                     2

The title ‘Dead Runner’ proved to be the most popular amongst all of the titles available to tick, Whilst  ‘Victoria’ wasn’t ticked once . I chose to put down this title name because its very old fashioned name and the myth of Vampires is also very old fashioned and that’s how the two interlink, not to mention this would be the name of the main character.

Q9)Would you like to see all the main characters in a film to be included in the trailer?

 Yes     No

13        2

More people chose yes for this question , below are some of the reasons why people chose the answers above;

“Yes because it gives you a better idea of the film”

“You know what to expect”

“Gives you an idea of whom the actors are within the film”

“It encourages viewers to go and see the film”

“It’s good to know and see all the main characters beforehand so you get an insight into the film”

“Creates more suspense if you don’t know all characters”

“Entices you into watching the feature film”

Recognizing the features of a sucsessful horror film

In my last lesson I studied and analysed the film paranormal activity , we achieved this by look at the three following aspects;

How Characters are established

The audience get to know the characters through the setting and surroundings they are emerged in. All the filming in Paranormal Activity was done within the house, this enables the audience to gain an insight into the characters personal life , for example we understand the main male enjoys playing the guitar as it is shown in the footage suggesting he is a music enthusiast , along with the female making jewellery  which implies she is creative.

The Dialogue plays a key factor in how the audience get to know more about the role that characters play. We understand that the main female is the males girlfriend as she express “I have the best boyfriend” , also when the two have conversations and interactions with each other and people such as their friends / Professor/Doctor. When the professor asks the female about her problem she reveals her life story , beginning at her childhood, this gives the audience some exposition.

Considering how Setting is used

As I mentioned previously majority of filming is done in rooms within the house. Overall the house depicts a very modern feel and although it’s not a traditional setting for a horror, there are certain signifiers which set the overall idea/theme off. This includes the staircase, the knife and mirrors situated around the house.

Because the filming is done by a main character within the film makes it seems more authentic and real, therefore allowing the point of view to be strongly established within the film. When the audience see the reflection of the male holding the camera in the mirror it indicates this further, we as an audience automatically feel part of the film and can relate to it with the angle and shot sizes used, as we would observe this through our own cameras as if we were filming. Footage is not shown in every room, which creates suspense further more as it suggests that there is something lurking around the corner.


Sound

There is no non-diegetic sound within Paranormal Activity , this adds to the atmosphere as it portrays how the film is not professionally made and as a I mentioned before the audience can then relate to it. The main male character however does play horror music on the computer that is shown in the filming footage, this is cleverly done as they joke about how cheesy it sounds yet it would be used in traditional horror films. All of the sound is diegetic ,example's of this are the fuzz through the camera which implies further how the film is made by an amateur. Beeping of the alarm clock which is also a signifier for how a lot of strange going on's happen in the bedroom. The constant noise of the couples dialogue and the contrast of how it then goes deathly quiet when they are sleeping , this is noticed as the camera is placed in a fixed position and night vision is switched on. There are also ordinary household sounds such as clanking and clashing of pots and pans etc, the audience will be familiarized with such noises.


Other points of evidence to suggest the film was made to appear as though an amateur had filmed the footage ;

Time and date appear upon the screen
Unsteady camera movement: when he passes the camera to his girlfriend
Reflection of him holding the camera in the mirror
The fact its done in and around the house implies how its a home-made film 

Story Board

Shot One

Shot Two

Shot Three

 Shot Four

Shot Five

Shot Six

 Shot Seven

Shot Eight

Shot Nine

Shot Ten

Shot Elleven

Shot Twelve



Shot Thirteen

        Shot Fourteen

 Shot Fifteen

Evidence: