Bloopers

Directors Commentary

Beyond Closed Eyes - Trailer

Questionnaire

In order to gain feedback on how our target audience found our film, we decided to give out a questionnaire to 10 teenage students. These are the questions we asked:

Questionnaire for ‘Beyond Closed Eyes’

Answer the following questions on a scale of 1-10:

1. How effective was our cast selection?
2. How did you find the editing and continuity?
3. How well suited was the music and other sound effects to the sequence?
4. How appropriate were the location used?
5. How appropriate were the titles used?
6. How much did you enjoy watching the film opening?

Tick the appropriate answer:

7) Our film opening was:

• Dull
• Average
• Interesting

8) Would you watch the rest of the film?

• Definitely not
• Probably not
• Maybe
• Probably
• Definitely

Answer:

9) Do you think we could improve it? If so, how?

• Yes
• No

10) What was your favourite aspect of the film opening?

Results:

Here are the average results we received for the first 6 questions:

1) 8

2) 9

3) 8

4) 9

5) 7

6) 9

- Our most disappointing outcome was for question 5 about the titles used. When I asked the ones that gave lower results why they gave them, they replied that they didn't notice the titles which suggests that we should have made them more bold. I believe it is important to credit everyone who helped the production of our film opening.

- For question number 7, all of our target audience replied with the answer 'interesting' which we were pleased with.

- For question number 8, 4 people said 'definitely', 4 people said 'probably' and 2 people said 'maybe'. The 2 that said maybe were boys which suggest that our film opening is more for a female audience.

- The only ideas that our target audience gave to improve it was to have more action at the beginning to draw the audience in more

- For most people, their favourite aspect of the film opening was the dream as it added some mystery to the film opening straight away and opened up many potential story lines.

Poster

This is another poster that we created for our film, for this poster we didn't use the Juno poster as a style model as we wanted this poster to be different. This poster uses pictures of the actors and actresses so that the audience can relate to them. Again we used the colour red for the tagline as we wanted there to be an element of romance, which hints the storyline. As with the other poster, we decided to use the blue background again as it gives a dream like feel.

Poster Design

For the advertising of our film we wanted to create a poster or billboard. We decided that we needed a theme for our film, for example for the film Juno the theme is stripes, from Juno's top. We decided to use the film poster for 'Juno' as a style model as it has the same theme and also both of our films have similar characters.  

We decided that clouds would be an appropriate theme for our film as it connotes 'daydreaming', we thought that this would be good considering as our film is about dreams. We also decided to use clouds as the light blue colour of the sky matches our title. 

As some other films do, we decided to create a tagline, to give the audience a feel of what the film is like but not to give too much of an insight into what was going to happen. We also wanted this to make our target audience watch the film. We decided that red would be a good colour as it constrasts well with the background and is quite eyecatching. Red also symbolises romance and this hits the storyline to our audience.

We decided that we should put the names of our actors on the poster as this is a key way in which distributrors promote their films because if the characters are well known the audience will be more likely to watch the film. But, we did also think that because our film is an independent film it is more likely that we would not have any famous actors in our film and therefore the people who would see the poster may not be attracted by this.

Equipment Used

During the filming of our film opening, we used the following equipment:

We used Georgia's Nikon D5100 to film our opening sequence, it is a high quality camera which was easy to use and fitted the tripod well.

To keep our shots steady we used a tripod hired from our school, it was very good for our desired camera shots and angles and worked well with the Nikon D5100.

We used Georgia's Apple MacBook to edit our film and to do some research for our film opening. This was very helpful as we could do the editing either at school or at home. We used the programme iMovie on the MacBook to edit our film, although we are familiar and have experience with Final Cut Pro, we thought that iMovie would be the most sensible editing software to use as the film opening task isn't too complex and iMovie has all the features needed to create a successful film opening which fits the brief.

Use of Sound Effects

We used numerous sound effects in our film opening for a number of reasons. Mainly to create more realistic settings and to make the dream scene seem more 'dreamy'. The effects that we used worked well.

Creating the Music

When creating our film, we had to think of a song which would convey a young protaginist well but would also appeal to a teenage audience and would be something which a teenager would listen to. At first we wanted to use the song 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran, but we later found that without permission this would not be possible. Instead we decided to create our own music using the programme GarageBand and also by using a composition of guitar by Georgia Daly. We used three different guitar tunes, pre-set drums and the composition to create the music.

Above is a picutre of Georgia creating the music by recording the composition onto her macbook. We got Georgia to compose a tune and then played it over the drums. We used three different guitar tunes and overlaid them over each other to create a solid and interesting piece of music. We all think it worked out quite well and after gaining feedback, it was confirmed that our target audience approved of it.

Audience Profile

 

Age: 12+ (certificate rating of film is a 12)

Gender: Primarily female, also males who can relate to characters

Residence: England

Occupation: Student, trainee, part-time job

Class: Middle (so can understand plot)

Lifestyle: Film enthusiasts, general student life of watching films that relate to them

Education: Moderate

Likes: Young protagonist genre, romance, relationships, acoustic contemporary music, iPod, school, relating to characters

Dislikes: Horror, action/adventure, social cliques, bullying

Creating the Logo Transition

When creating our logo we wanted it to look professional and interesting. We created our moving logo 'Wired Productions' using a programme called LiveType. Using this programme enabled use to use moving words to make our logo more interesting and memorable. The effect that we used was called 'Barrel Jump'. 

Final Draft of Script

We decided that because our script from before we filmed our film opening was so different to what was actually said in the real film opening that we would create a final draft of our script.

Film opens with an establishing shot of central protagonist, Abby’s house. All lights are off except for her bedroom, which is giving out a dim glow. It then cuts to a medium shot of Abby in bed, asleep however it is clear by her muttering of words such as “stop” and “please” that she is having a dream. The shot then dissolves into her dream where a point of view shot follows the vision she is enduring. In the dream, she is in the school common room and her rivalry Nancy are bullying and throwing things at her and her friend. She then storms out the common room in an attempt to get away from this nightmare however on the way out her love interest Chris trips into her, a picture of Chris falls out of Abby’s pocket. Abby then wakes up and a medium shot portrays her sudden awakening.

Abby: (In a confused tone) Woah

Music begins to play over a montage of Abby walking to school. At this point, music is still playing and the titles are on screen. As Abbey arrives at school, she takes her earphones out to greet her best friend, Ella.

Abby: Hey

Ella: Heya you alright?

Abby: Yeah you?

Ella: Yeah, stayed up until midnight finishing the English essay, you done it?

Abby: (In a glum tone) Oh damn, no I haven’t

Ella: You alright?

Abby: Yeah just, just annoyed I didn’t do the essay

Ella: Abby, you wouldn’t get upset about a stupid essay, I know you, what’s the matter?

Abby: It’s just… I had a really weird dream last night. It…it felt so real

School bell rings

Ella: There’s the bell, we’ve both got a free shall we go to the common room?

Abby: Okay

Walking into the common room where her dreams start to become reality

Nancy: Did you see her Facebook status last night? So lame. Oh, there’s the sket (starts to throw things at her)

Ella: What’s going on?

Abby: I… I’ve seen this before

Ella: What?

Abby: Let’s just get out

(Chris bumps into Abby on her way out of the common room. A picture of him falls out of Abby’s pocket.)

Chris: Sorry, sorry. What the hell is this?]

Abby: Um

Chris: What’s going on? You creep!

Abby stands there speechless.

Our Production Logos

We wanted our film to have a professional feel to it, so we created two film production logos to make it look more realistic and professional. The first was 'Wired Productions', there was no specific reason as to why we chose to use this picture or call it wired productions but we thought that together they both work well and it conveys a young, edgy film production company that works well with our films genre of a young protaginist.

The second logo that we created was 'Deluxe Studios', again there was no particular reason as to why we chose this but we thought that it gives the film a very sleek and professional feel and also isn't as eye catching as the other logo so it works well.

Film Logos

For our film logo we wanted to do some research into some popular and well-known film logos. Here are some of the logos that we found and used for inspiration.