Arthouse or Mainstream?

We decided that we wanted our film to be a mainstream film as we felt this would allow it to branch out to a wider variety of audience and also to make it be as successful as we feel it could be. By having a mainstream film, we would be able to advertise our film around the globe, therefore making it available to a wider audience and giving us the feedback from a wider set of both positive and negative reactions towards our film.

Our film would also would have a higher rate of being successful due to the wider variation of advertising that we would be able to do to make our film wellknown. This including spreads in newspapers and magazines, and also information pages about the film on online social networking sites such as 'Facebook' and 'Twitter'. We feel that an online blog would also allow us to attract a different style of audiences of those who perhaps have blogs themselves. The fact that nowadays most people aged between 13+ own a smartphone, would allow our film to be a major talking point between our intended audience as they would be able to access information on their phones without even having to step out of their houses.

By making our film mainstream, the general finacing of our film would allow us to venture past one genre of film that we are focusing on and perhaps create sub-genre films. Also, if we were to continue creating more films, we could therefore afford to hire more well-known actors for our films which in the long run would accumulate much better success for our films than if we were to be a small arthouse film company.

'The Unseen' poster

This is the poster for our film 'The Unseen' that I designed myself but with previous ideas that my group and I thought of together. The idea behind the poster for our film was for an eye to be the main focus of it so that it emphasised the fact of knowing that you are being watched but not knowing what exactly what is watching you. As in our film, the character of Thomas the ghost is only seen by one person; the character of Katie, and even though other people surrounding her can experience what she is going through, they cannot see what she see's, therefore it is unseen by the surrounding eyes of onlookers.

The reasoning for having an eye looking through a keyhole was to show that even though people surrounding Katie try to see what she does, even though they are being discreet, they will never be able to see through the eyes of her. The reason for having the text in the bottom right hand corner with the white etches around it was created in a way that we felt made it look mysterious but also as the white area surrounding the text could symbolise the ghost, as ghosts are usually portrayed to be stereotypically white; fixing in with a typical convention of horror. But also, it was done so that the text had some parts that were black within it which could represent how people are so close to finding out what Katie's 'new friend' is, but then in contrast the majority of the white surrounding the text, which represents Thomas and how he is in a more superior position as he is in control of the situation and no one else can change that.

I am pleased with the end poster for our film as I feel that it really captures the storyline of our film and is simple and non-complex for onlookers to see as they walk past. With the image that is displayed within it and the name of the film below, it directly gives you an idea of what the film will be about. Yet, the finish of the poster I feel could be better, as some areas are messy and look unfinished, but then again I think that it can be portrayed in a way that blends in well with the mystery and strange goings on within the film. 

The Unseen

After a lot of thought about what the name of our film should be, we decided upon the name 'The Unseen'. We all researched about films in which ghosts were included and then we thought of different names on our own leading us to then speak about the different names that we had thought of individually in our groups. We narrowed it down to a few names that we had thought of and then we went on to discuss whether or not we thought it would be suitable to be the title of our film. I thought of the name 'The Unseen' and then asked my fellow group members; Harri Long and Becky Roydhouse, what they thought about it, at first they liked it but thought that it should maybe be called 'Unseen', but after discussing the idea of possibly using this name, we decided that 'The Unseen' made more sense, so therefore we decided to use it as the final title of our film.

The idea behind the title 'The Unseen' was the idea of knowing that something/someone is there but not being able to see it, and the weird goings on that occur that everyone is aware of but only affecting one person.This being exactly what our film is based upon; Thomas the ghost, whom is only seen by the character of Katie and no one else, can see it, therefore making it 'unseen'. We then finalised the idea of this being the name and then concluded that we all agreed upon it being the final name of our film. We then continued to research different font types that we felt matched both the name of our film and if it connected to the type of genre of film (this being the horror/thriller genre) that we were trying to sell to our audience in which they would be able to enjoy and watch.

Sound/Voice overs

In our opening sequence, we decided to use a mixture of both diegetic and non diegetic sounds. We decided to use a piece of music called Spooky which we found on a website called 'Free Sounds'. We searched horror music and listened to possible pieces of music that we felt would suit the type of film that we were creating and that would make sense if it were to be used within our film. The reason we chose to use 'Spooky' above all of the other pieces of music that we found was because, the underlying tone to the piece was very minor with a few major keys included which we felt would work well when our sequence would reach its climax. The piece was continuous so made sense all the way through and even if we were to cut the piece to add another sound in, it would continue from where we cropped it and it would still made sense. We decided to have this music playing throughout the sequence as we felt it would build tension and keep the audience interested in what would happen next as the music began to build.

We decided to add in effects such as a chair squeak, heart beats and loud bangs, which also were accessible from 'Free Sounds', we used these effects in areas of our opening sequence that we felt either needed an added extra sound to dramatise the diegetic sounds that were already there, or just to intensify a scene in the film to make it more dramatic.

Non diegetic voiceovers were used twice in the editing our film, once because a scene that we had where by the character of Katie said a monologue, turned out to be slightly muffled and the sound of her voice had been quietened due to the weather conditions surrounding her such as wind. Yet due to her own commitments for her own film, it made it difficult to use the same voice but that would not put us behind schedule, so therefore we decided upon using Becky's voice for this particular section as her voice sounded slightly similar to that of Ellie's, but also it meant that we would save some time. We used a second non diegetic voice over of Harri Long's voice saying Katie as she ran away from the graveyard; we did this because we felt that it made that particular scene more dramatic and built suspense as it led to the next scene. We also added in a pre-recorded monologue of when Katie is speaking to the ghost of Thomas, we pre recorded this of Ellie's voice when filming our sequence, we added in the voice during editing to ensure that what she was saying could be heard loudly and clearly.

Credits/Logo

For our production company logo we decided to use a font that was rough around the edges but then had a smooth overall look. This being because we wanted to have a typical horror font so that the audience would be able to relate it to the genre of the film. But we then decided to have the general font quite smooth because it could possibly show the link to the film; what you may see directly from the eye might not always be the full story of what is behind it.

For our credits, we decided to use a font which resembled that of a type writer. We chose to use this as we felt it appeared as though some one was typing it themselves; adding to the audiences fright as it is as though some one is watching them. But also the slow jerky movements as the letters appear on the screen one by one, links in with the typical horror genre and also un nerves the audience.

For the name of our film we wanted it to look haunting so that it linked in with the theme of our film; ghosts. We chose to use this font as we felt it look careless and slightly messy; linking back to the characters of our film Katie and the ghost of Thomas.

Editing day 2

On our final day of editing, we inserted our production company logo so that it appeared at the beginning of our film. We also inserted the name of our film at the end of our film with a non diegetic piece of music. We decided to insert this piece of music at the end as we felt it fitted in well with the title of the film, so therefore gave an inkling towards the audience of what our film would be about, and also to leave them wanting to see more of the film.

We ensured that it all fitted together as it needed to be and that all sounds were in the correct place and then we watched the film over a few times to ensure that it was of the best quality that we felt it would be able to reach.

Editing day 1

On the first day of editing our footage, we placed all of our clips into Final Cut Express. We then went on to cut out certain parts of our film that we did not need. This then allowed us to put all of our final chosen sequences together and to ensure that they all had a smooth transition when moving from one to another. We made sure that these transitions were smooth by including some transitions such as 'Fade In, Fade Out' and 'Dissolve', where we felt they were necessary.

After finishing these details, we then moved on to add in sound into the places where it was needed. We used a non diegetic piece of music that we found on a website called ‘Freesounds’ which was called 'Spooky'. We decided to use this continuously throughout our opening as we felt it built tension and suspense until the final scenes where the film reached its climax.

We also added in extra non diegetic sounds of a chair squeaking and loud bangs. We decided to add in these sounds as we felt it added to the scariness of our film and also as we felt it linked in well with some typical conventions of the horror genre.

A voice over was used in a section of our film where we had Ellie (who played the role of Katie) speaking diegetic dialogue, yet when we listened to this back when editing, we realised that the background noises that surrounded her dialogue made it unclear as to what she was saying. We therefore decided to use Becky to repeat the same section of dialogue so that we could ensure that the audience would be able to understand what was  being said.

We therefore decided to save our work so far into a folder whereby all of our video clips had been saved so far, to ensure that all of our work would be saved together so that it would be easier to find.

We then saved our sequence so far into the shared Media folder on the school Mac's to ensure that we would be be able to find our piece of work for when we wanted to continue editing.

Final updated shooting schedule

Shot Number	Time	Location	Props	Who
6	11am-11.30am	Long shot of new house	No props	No-one
9,10,11,12	11.30am-12.30pm	Graveyard	Clothes Ellie is wearing, Dylan the dog	Ellie
13	12.30pm-12.45pm	Lane In Sandon	No Props needed	Ellie
14,15	1pm-1.30pm	Harri Long’s house(kitchen and stairs)	Glass, biscuit tin and mug of tea.	Ellie and Harri N.
17	1.30pm-1.35	Stairs of house	No props	Ellie
16	1.35pm-1.45pm	1st Bedroom	Moving chair	Ellie
New shot (wasn’t planned)	1.45pm-2pm	2nd Bedroom	No props	Ellie
20	2pm-2.15pm	Landing of house	No props	Ellie
New shot	2.15pm-2.30pm	Bathroom- in the bath	No props	Ellie
New shot	2.30-3pm	{Check through footage}	No props	All

First shooting schedule

Shot Number	Time	Location	Props	Who
6	11am-11.30am	Long shot of new house	No props	No-one
9,10,11,12	11.30am-12.30pm	Graveyard	Clothes Ellie is wearing, Dylan the dog	Ellie
13	12.30pm-12.45pm	Lane In Sandon	No Props needed	Ellie
14,15	1pm-1.30pm	Harri Long’s house(kitchen and stairs)	Glass, biscuit tin and mug of tea.	Ellie and Harri N.
17	1.30pm-1.35	Stairs of house	No props	Ellie
16	1.35pm-1.45pm	1st Bedroom	Moving chair	Ellie
7	1.45pm-2pm	Bedroom	Bed	Ellie
8	2pm-2.10pm	Stairs	No props	Ellie
20	2.10pm-2.15pm	Landing of house	No props	Ellie
18,19	2.15-2.30	Through keyhole & Kitchen	No props	Ellie and Harri N.
1,2,3	Friday 18th 12pm-1pm	Clothal Common- Inside of Harri Nicholls house	No Props	Ellie
4,5	Friday 18th  1pm-1.30pm	Inside of Harri Nicholls’ house	Kitchen Utensils	Ellie and Harri N.
6	Friday 18th 1.30pm-1.45pm	Harri Nicholls house- outside	For sale sign	No-one