Evaluation- How are social groups represented in our production?

  In our film, conventions of social groups are both conformed to and subverted. This is done through the use of meise en scene, camera, sound and editing.

  The main group in our film is a group of teenagers. One way in which conventions are subverted is by having a diverse range of characters. While stereotypically you would see a group of similar people in a social group, our group contains a number of character types such as ‘jock’ and ‘nerd’. These character types are shown through meise en scene through the use of costume. The ‘nerd’ wears a superhero tee-shirt whereas the ‘average’ character wears a hoodie.

  Another way in which conventions are subverted is through dialogue. Conventionally, a male character would take a lead role. This is different in our film as Zoe’s character takes the lead. “You all know why we’re here.” This diegetic sound shows the female character is in charge of the situation.

There are also ways in which our film conforms to conventions about social groups. There are a number of stereotypes present in our film. These stereotypes are mainly presented through meise en scene; they can be seen in characters costumes. The characters wear clothing stereotypical to their personalities, for example the nerd wears a superhero tee-shirt and the jock wears a denim-type jacket. The use of stereotypes is not necessarily a bad thing, as it helps the audience identify the characters and is conventionally done in horror films.

The Summoning

How did the movie change during filming?

  At the start of the film we set out with a very complicated idea and had little idea of how we were going to be able to achieve our goal, we did not realize how long it would actually take to film the film and we didn't take into account the actual setting of the film.
We had lots of problems with the setting of the movie, this was because our preliminary idea of filming in the morgue in Chertsey had to be stopped because the day before we filmed there we found out that the morgue was closed for renovations and that no-one was allowed inside or it would be a criminal offence and a fine.
This meant we had to re-think our whole scene as the morgue was very spacious and therefore it would be hard to replicate the space inside the building. Seeing the morgue was shut down we had to look elsewhere to film, this proved to be difficult as all the creepy looking locations we found were either unreachable or un-achievable.
Therefore we decided to film at my house seeing it is an old cottage and therefore it retains some of the creepy factor. It also has lots of cracks and a relatively big dining room where we could do the Ouija scene and it would look quite ominous and creepy with the idea of the candles and the match bringing creepy lighting to the forefront.
The change of scenery definitely impacted onto to our preliminary idea of what shots we would implement into our film. however we tried to work around it and involve the shots we first wanted just at different intervals or different positions. This was especially important when considering the 180 degree rule seeing we don't want to disorientate the audience on where about the characters are in the scene.
The end of the film stayed the same as what we previously wanted with the candles getting blown out, everyone disappearing  and then the match scene where it gets blown out at the end with the monster coming into shot and blowing out the match. However it didn't all go to plan with shot types, we can see this because our initial ideas had lots of birds eye views of the group, we realized shortly into filming that this would be nearly impossible to film as we do not have the correct equipment to do it outside, on the inside however we could get high angle shots but not a birds eye view as the ceiling was 8 foot high and we wouldn't be able to see the screen whilst filming.

Shot List

  Here is a complete list of the shots we used in our film, along with the times they appear.

00:00:05:29 – 00:00:13:07 - panning up shot. Establishing shot.

00:00:13:10 – 00:00:19:26 - long shot.

00:00:20:03 – 00:00:25:22 - high angle shot.

00:00:25:26 – 00:00:32:26 - over the shoulder. Makes you feel like you are there and adds to the intensity.

00:00:33:03 – 00:00:36:17 medium shot.

00:00:36:21 – 00:00:39:29 - match on action.

00:00:40:06 – 00:00:46:18 – medium shot.

00:00:46:19 – 00:00:54:18 – panning right shot. One of my favourite shots; it is smooth and professional looking.

00:00:54:19 – 00:01:00:20 – high angle shot.

00:01:00:21 – 00:01:05:01 – two person. High angle. There are a lot of high angle shots during the part of the scene in this room because they make the characters look small and vulnerable.

00:01:05:02 – 00:01:10:08 – match on action.

00:01:10:09 – 00:01:12:04 – high angle.

00:01:12:05 – 00:01:14:23 – two person shot. High angle.

00:01:14:24 – 00:01:20:23 – match on action.

00:01:20:24 – 00:01:22:12 – two person. High angle.

00:01:22:13 – 00:01:24:27 – medium shot.

00:01:24:28 – 00:01:33:12 – match on action.

00:01:33:13 – 00:01:34:27 – match on action. Another of my favourite shots because it feels dynamic due to the angle.

00:01:34:28 – 00:01:55:04 – over the shoulder. Panning. Long shot. This shot starts out as an over the shoulder, but as Matt moves it becomes a long shot. The camera pans as Matt walks because the audience is still essentially following his perspective.

00:01:55:05 – 00:01:59:23 – two person close up. A shot that meets the conventions of the horror genre very well. similar shots can be seen in many other horror films.

Sound Effect Research

  Music isn't the only copyright free sound we will need for our film; we will also need sound effects. Like the music, we want the sound effects to be subtle and not immediately noticeable.

  The first sound effect we want is a quiet ambient noise that plays during the 'IFM Studios' image.This is simply to add sound to an otherwise needlessly silent part, and also makes it seem more professional.

Breathing sound.

  We also need a sound that would come from a ghost (i.e Luke). This noise will appear when the characters are in the hallway, to draw their attention towards the door. Ideally, the sound is a low pitched, echo-y breath.

Publisher- Paramount

  Paramount Pictures Corporation (commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, and formerly known as Famous Players-Lasky Corporation) is a film studio, television production company and motion picture distributor, consistently ranked as one of the "Big Six" film studios of Hollywood. It is a subsidiary of US media conglomerate Viacom. Paramount is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It has distributed several successful film series, such as Transformers, Mission: Impossible and the Universe series.

  Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving film studio in the world after Gaumont Film Company (1895), Pathé (1896), Nordisk Film, (1906), and Universal Studios. It is the last major film studiostill headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles.

  Paramount Pictures is noteworthy for having three films that have surpassed the $1-billion-mark in worldwide box office sales:

·         Titanic (1997; $2,186,800,000)

·         Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011; $1,123,794,079)

·         Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014; $1,065,153,989)

  In 2006, Paramount became the parent of DreamWorks SKG. Soros Strategic Partners and Dune Entertainment II soon afterwards acquired controlling interest in the live-action films released through September 16, 2005, the latest film in this package was Just Like Heaven. The remaining live-action films through March 2006 remained under direct Paramount control. However, Paramount does own distribution (and other ancillary) rights to the Soros/Dune films.

Publisher- Lionsgate

  Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (or Lionsgate) is a Canadian-American entertainment company. The company was formed inVancouver, British Columbia, on July 3, 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of November 2013, it is the most commercially successful mini major film and television distribution company in North America and the seventh most profitable movie studio. Lionsgate Films is not to be confused with Robert Altman's former company, Lion's Gate Films, although both names refer to the same Vancouver landmark, the Lions Gate bridge.

  Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation (Lionsgate) was formed in 1997 by Frank Giustra and Avi Federgreen with a $16 million investment including another $40 million from other investors which included Keyur Patel and Yorkton Securities' executives such as G. Scott Paterson.

The distribution of selected recent non-in-house films for pay-per-view and on-demand are under the supervision of NBCUniversal Television Distribution under Universal Pictures (Universal formerly held home video and television rights to many of the early Lionsgate films), while all others (particularly the in-house films) are distributed for both cable and broadcast television through Lionsgate's syndicated division.

  On September 13, 2010, Lionsgate and Televisa formed a joint venture, Pantelion Films, to produce for the next five years eight to 10 films a year targeted for the U.S. Latino market. Lions Gate sold off its Canadian distribution unit, Maple Pictures, in September 2011 to Alliance Films.

  On December 23, 2013, Lions Gate announced they have crossed over $1 billion domestically and internationally for the 2nd year in a row with the success of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Now You See Me, Instructions Not Included, and Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain.

Title Research- The Italian Job

  In our film we want to strive towards something which is fluent and easily slides over the images and movie scenes we have filmed, the Italian job opening has lots of credits which flows simply and easily over the actual footage shown, this helps us get into the film more as there are no intrusive images with writing forcefully put over the top and so it can be viewed much more easily. W also have to be careful of the colors we use as it can't contradict the image, for example white writing on a white sky. What we should be striving towards is something which sticks out on a screen, a good example of this would be the Italian job opening as it has a bright color like yellow and white on a black background so it brings more emphasis to whats being said using the yellow writing. Even any of the pictures they use are in a different and vibrant color so that they will have maximum attention, we should strive to achieve this however seeing our movie is a horror movie we should look for black and white images to conform to the overall feeling of tenseness, The use of colors can be a really important example of how we should gain attention to whats going on through the use of shadows, shades and lighter on darker footage, this will automatically create an atmosphere which will drag the audience into the story.

Movie Cast

Bill-

what we expect him to do- to act appropriately to the theme of the film (horror)

how we expect him to act- he will have to act in an appropriate way as in act scared, terrified, mortified, nervous, tense etc.

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- normal guy means acts nervous of the unknown, a bit tentative to the idea of spirits.

Zoey-

what we expect her to do-We expect her to perform her role to the appropriate standard and she should be able to say her lines in a creepy manner

how we expect her to act- she will have to act in a less scared way because she is the one who brings the Ouija board

How she will incorporate stereotypes into her acting- blond maybe relating to naivety, suggests the idea to the group and is unaware if the consequences.

Billy-

what we expect him to do- act in character, stay in character, good facial expressions.

how we expect him to act- more scared then most other people there, he will have to use a variety of facial expressions to get his feelings across

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- nerdy character is supposed to be scared of pretty much everything, doesn't want to take part in the ritual, afraid of being left out, forced into everything.

Matt-

what we expect him to do- perform well as his character, stay as the jock/leader

how we expect him to act- less scared then anyone else as he is the leader and is maybe naive to the possibilities of spirits

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- as the jock he is supposed to e headstrong and doesn't think before he acts, we can see this in our film as he is quick to jump on board the idea of the Ouija board, he would be less inclined to react as he maybe doesn't understand the scenario seeing they are stereotypically stupid

Conor-

what we expect him to do- he will have to stay as the dark guy, be less scared and more open to the idea of the Ouija board

how we expect him to act- we expect him to act in an appropriate manner where he will stay in character, keep a neutral expression and not be too fazed by anything which happens.

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- as the dark guy he needs to be into the idea of the Ouija board and the dark themes surrounding it, this means that he shouldn't be scared of whats happening, we can see this with his rather subdued reaction

Luke-

what we expect him to do-give his creepiest face as the monster and to stay in character

how we expect him to act-creepy, spooky, turns up out of no where

How he will incorporate stereotypes into his acting- As the monster he needs to have a scary element around him, therefore his facial features have to be a creepy smile as that it usually what scares people the most, his body language needs to be quite dominating, he can achieve this as he is the tallest in the group and therefore can look down on everyone

Actor Interviews

  Whilst we were interviewing our actors we found that specific people fit specific stereotypes which you would find in a typical horror film cliché.