Audience Response To Film - Hide & Seek

After completing our film we watched our film and others groups during a lesson with our tutor, assessing each others films and commenting on the strengths, and weaknesses of each film. Below is an audience response on the strengths and weaknesses that pupils in our class commented on about our film (Hide and Seek).

Strengths: 

• Good use of sound and sound effects; screeching sounds whilst words swiped in.
• Good use of special effects e.g. the slow motion and swiping of words effect.
• Good variety and wide range of shots used; establishing shots, close ups, panning shot etc. 
• Good use of camera angles;  high angle and low angle shots.
• Good build up of tension through sound and editing
• Good use of enigma codes.  

Weaknesses and improvements: 

• Few camera shakes whilst filming. 
• A minor jump between transitions affecting the flow in camera shots.
• One pupil said the zoom we used was a little to fast, although we felt we needed a fast zoom in order to be safe in not exceeding the 2 minute film time limit. 
• Another pupil suggested when the camera cuts from Louise counting one... two... three... to where the people were hiding, we could have carried on the counting adding a voice over at these cuts, instead of going back to Louise counting five... six... seven... and missing out the number four. 
• Also we could have filmed the outside establishing shot of the house during dusk, instead of filming at daytime, as someone mentioned this would add to the codes and conventions of a Thriller, also adding to the suspense. 

If we were to reproduce this film we would take these improvements into consideration and use these points to improve our film. 


 

Hide & Seek - Film Evaluation

Our brief was to construct the opening sequence of a Thriller film, including titles and a wide range of different camera shots. The opening sequence was to be aimed at audiences of 15 or 18 certificates and must not be more than two minutes long.

In what ways does your Film, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing Films? 

Firstly I analysed a set of different existing thriller film opening sequences, some of which included; 'Physco', 'Vertigo' (both by Alfred Hitchcock) and also 'The Secret Window'. I found the opening of Vertigo very clever as the camera zoomed into a woman's eye and then faded into a spiral creating a lexical field of disillusion, leaving the audience confused as to what is happening, and still keeping the shape of the eye. The spiral continued revolving symbolising the womans eye, until the camera then zoomed out and faded back to the womans eye. This then inspired me and my group to come up with the Idea of using a close up camera shot of an object and then fading it into another object of the same shape and outline (developing the forms and conventions existing films). We decided to use the circular outline of our production company (photoplay), and to then fade this into a circular light on the outside of the house, slowly zooming out from this to an establishing shot of the house. Although some of our ideas were inspired from other thriller films, we wanted to create a different thriller opening that was unique and different to existing ones (challenging the forms and conventions of existing films) We had studied Saul Bass in class and looked at the work he had done to create the opening of Vertigo. I then researched more on Saul Bass and his work within films and found he produced the opening of the famous James Bond film 'Casino Royale'. We watched these Thriller opening sequences to find out the typical codes and conventions of a thriller, and to also look at what camera shots and angles are used. We could then get an idea of what shots most thrillers use as an opening sequence. 

As our thriller piece was only a title sequence, we were not able to follow the rule of Todorov's theory (equillibrium, dis-equillibrium, equillibrium restored), although many thriller films usually follow this structure. The purpose of a title sequence at the beginning of a film, is to give the audience an inset as to what the film is about, it gives the audience subtle clues as to what may happen, and leaves them pondering and thinking over what they may expect in the film. Basically the opening of a thriller builds up suspense, leaves the audience puzzled; questioning the outcome plot of the film, and gives clues as to what the film is about. The answers are then usually revealed at the end of the film. Music, lighting, camera shots, sounds and mise-en-scene are all linked and combined in some way to create a successful thriller piece. These five film factors are all used effectively and all play an important part when producing a thriller.

How does your film represent particular social groups?      

Our film consists of a group of four young teenagers, who have a sleepover party. When one of the girls (Louise) decides to go and get a glass of water, one member of the group has an idea to hide from her. Louise comes back from getting her glass of water and notices her friends have gone. She realises they are playing a game of hide and seek; "playing hide and seek are we?". What the group doesn't realise is that someone is watching there game, someone is peering in through the window, some kind of stalker. One of the girls get locked in a cupboard in which she is hiding in, by this 'stalker', the scene ends with the girl screaming for help, whilst the rest is a mystery for the audience to wonder upon. Our film is represented with an ordinary group of young teenagers. The actors in our film are aged 16/17 which means they can relate back to the teenage social group. 

What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

Being as we are amateurs and have not produced the full film only the opening title sequence, I would distribute my film virally, on sites such as youtube where the majority of web videos are viewed and discussed, and Facebook where the majority of my target audience would be able to view and discuss, also my video would then get widely spread quickly. If my film was fully produced and I could get the sufficient amount of funding for my film I would consider distributing my film to a small British institute such as DNA films. 

I have found many thriller openings, in fact the majority of thriller openings include very little or no dialogue, this is because the director does not want to give away much of the actors identity away, this is left for the audience to work out. Also there is usually a mysterious yet sophisticated location for the opening of the thriller, adding to the anxiety and leaving the audience to anticipate whats happening. Ambient soundtrack is also used in most thriller openings, this is also to increase tension and create a sense of illusion. Low key lighting may often be used to create an eerie atmosphere. Orchestral music is commonly used in thriller openings, as the powerful sound creates suspense adding to the conventions of a thriller. 

Before filming we first had to plan and think in groups of what we were going to do. In our group we came up with many ideas, we got some of our ideas from thriller stories online which inspired us. After discussing and thinking up a brief outline to the story of our thriller, we decided to title our film, 'hide and seek'. We thought this title was best suited for our film, as it described the film and was quite simple not over complicated, but also effective. We tried out many different fonts and writing styles but decided to go with a simple effective font, instead of making the title look over the top (messy). The location we choose to film at was Zack's house, we choose this location as there is a lot of area surrounding the house, the house is quite big and paramount, and also there is a wooden balcony situated and the back end of the house, which we thought would be good to use or take some shots from. The house is also in a remote surrounding which we thought would add to the suspense of the thriller. Many of our group members lived close by which also helped to determine this area which we were going to film at. Once at the location of filiming (zacks house), we had to set up props, mark out postioning of objects, and cover or take down any mirrors that would obstruct our filming.

Who would be the audience for your media product (film)?
In our group we decided not to show or use any violence in our film. Instead we came up with an idea of having a stalker peering through the glass windows whilst a group of friends were playing a game of 'hide and seek', gradually building up the tension and suspense. The stalker then gets into the house and locks one of the girls in a cupboard which she is hiding in (buliding up tension), the girl is then left screaming for someone to help her, the opening sequence is then cut to a close up of a light on the outside of the house, the camera then zooms out from the light to an establishing shot of the house, fading into the title 'Hide and Seek'. The audience for our film would mainly consist of 15 year olds to young adults who enjoy the the Thriller film genre. The rating for our film would be 15 certificate.

How did you attract/address your audience?          

Once the scene ends the audience is then left to work out what will happen next. An actor in our film (Louise Howard) begins counting before she goes looking for her friends; 1,2,3,4....5,6,7..... etc. we decided between each block of numbers we would have a cut to show the friends running off to hide. During the editing stage we also decided to put the words, 'you can run', 'but', 'you can't hide', in during the pauses between counting. To add to the tension of the piece, we added screching music as the words slid in, we thought this would be effective and add to the anxiety. We also agreed to not show our protagonist's face (the stalker), as we felt this would give away a lot of his identity, where as we wanted to leave this a mystery so that the audience would be puzzled as to who he is, we felt this would add to the suspense not knowing who the killer/ stalker is. By using young teenage actors in our film this helped to attract the teenage audience. Also the game Hide and Seek is a well known children's game, meaning the audience of teenagers/young adults, would be able to relate to this. The sounds and SFX in the film would also appeal to, and attract our target audience e.g the screeching sound effects and tense build up in music. 

 

Intially we was going to film, during dusk just as it began to get dark, although this would have not been possible, as this would of affected the lighting and shots would not come out as clear due to the darkness outside. To avoid this problem and stick to the dark creepy feel, we edited the lighting of the piece making the shots a dark dull colour.

Many people would argue that our opening sequence is more in the style of a trailer, as one member of the class criticised, although this is the effect we wanted to achieve. The story to our thriller film is that a group of young teenagers are having a sleepover, but what they don't realise is that there is someone watching them some kind of stalker. The stalker gets into the house and locks a girl in the cupboard left screaming for help. The audience is left to wonder what may happen. We decided that this would be the opening title sequence and that the film would be shown a few years on to when the group have grown up and are adults.

We used many camera shots and different angles in our film. The shots used to produce this sequence were; low angle as the group of friends ran to hide, establising shot of the house, panning around the empty room to give the effect of the girl looking around the room, close up of the give counting, and camera zooms in and out towards and from the outside house light (we also edited in a rippling effect here, that faded from the photoplay production logo).

What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing your film?

From producing and constructing my film I have found that, the filming stage of producing a film takes much longer than I initially thought. I have learnt there are many stages of planning and thinking a director must go through order to produce a successful film. Many of these stages were, making sure all mirrors and obstacles are removed or covered from the location of filming, objects and furniture are kept in the the same place as to begin with in order for the continuity of the piece to flow correctly, and also that any places/ positions an actor is required  be at in points of the film, are marked out and made clear to the actor(s). Also the actor must kept hair, clothing, and style the same each time filming in order for the continuity to flow correctly, if the actor did not do this and change, for instance, their hairstyle the film would look un-professional and the continuity would not flow correctly. I have also learnt how to edit a film and add special effects to the film, which also take up a significant amount of time in producing the film. 

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From reflecting back to the preliminary task I have learnt and developed many new skills including; how to film a piece correctly using a wide range of camera shots and angles, I have learnt about the 360 degree filming rule, how to keep continuity flowing correctly, and that it is essential to use a tri-pod when filming to reduce camera shake and keep shots still. I have also learnt to keep to deadlines keeping to the timing requirements, and to develop group working with others skills. A lot of our media coursework has been done online using a computer meaning it has also developed and increased my IT skills. Before producing a film I didn't really know how to edit a film, over the period of working on the film and learning how to add sound effects, reduce camera shake, and edit the film, I now know how to edit and create the final version of a film, and to produce the final product (the film). 

 

Final Film Opening Sequence - Hide & Seek

Planning - Title Ideas

As a group we decided to choose the name for our film as 'Hide and Seek'. We decided upon this name as it fitted well with the ideas of the film we were going to produce. We came up with many film title ideas, and thought of many different film fonts we could use like; Candara, Freestyle script, Impact, Jasmine UPC, Juice ITC, Mistral, Papyrus, Pristina and Segoe Print. We then thought of ways in which we could 'play' with the three 'Hide and seek' words, to create an eerie Thriller film title that is effective. We changed then font size, tried using upper and lower case lettering, used bold and italic fonts, and then Rachel Hatter came up with the idea of fading the two 'ee' letters in the word 'seek', to a pair of suspicious eyes that would blink and then fade back into the work 'seek'. Here is the idea we had, of using the eyes below: 

 

  Unfortunately we did not have the equipment/software to do this idea of the eyes blinking. So we decided not make things over complex, and decided to go with a more simple but effective idea.

Storyboard!

Here is our Storyboard it was produced by myself and Ellie Clark: 

 

Thriller Film Script

HIDE AND SEEK

Written by Ellie Clark, Rachel Hatter, Zack Franks and Josh Christopher.

BLACK SCREEN

Sound of rain hitting window and girls chit chatting.

CUT

P.O.V FROM PERSON OUTSIDE

Girls laughing, talking etc.

Typical girls bedroom, e.g magazines, make up, food etc.

ZOOM IN FROM P.O.V SHOT TO INSIDE GIRLS BEDROOM.

GROUP SHOT OF GIRLS IN BEDROOM.

CLOSE UP OF GIRL ON LAPTOP

Girl 1: Oh my god, listen to the end of this one! “She opened her eyes and saw his gloved hands around her neck!”

GROUP SHOT

The other girls pretend to be scared.

MID SHOT OF GIRL GETTING UP

Girl 2: Just gonna get a drink…

CAMERA TRACKS HER OUT

LONG SHOT OF DOOR

CANTED SHOT OF DOOR KNOB

MID SHOT OF GIRL 3

Girl 3:  girls, I know, lets hide from her!

They all run out of the room laughing.

Girl 2 re-enters

MID SHOT OF GIRL WITH DRINK

PANNING OF EMPTY ROOM

CLOSE UP PUTTING DRINK DOWN

CLOSE UP OF FACE

Girl 2: Playing hide and seek are we?

Puts hand over face (grinning)

Girl 2: One

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: you can run

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl2: Two

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: But

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Three

EDIT

BLACKSCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: You can’t hide

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Five, six, seven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL UNDER A BED

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: nine, ten, eleven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL RUNNING DOWN THE STAIRS

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Thirteen, fourteen, fifth teen

CUT

GIRL RUNNING INTO A ROOM PANICING GOSE TO THE CUBOARD AND GETS INIT

P.O.V FROM GIRL OPENING THE CUBOARD

This is the first part of the script for our thriller opening. It was completed by Rachel and myself.

Sound of rain hitting window and girls chit chatting.

CUT

P.O.V FROM PERSON OUTSIDE

Girls laughing, talking etc.

Typical girls bedroom, e.g magazines, make up, food etc.

ZOOM IN FROM P.O.V SHOT TO INSIDE GIRLS BEDROOM.

GROUP SHOT OF GIRLS IN BEDROOM.

CLOSE UP OF GIRL ON LAPTOP

Girl 1: Oh my god, listen to the end of this one! “She opened her eyes and saw his gloved hands around her neck!”

GROUP SHOT

The other girls pretend to be scared.

MID SHOT OF GIRL GETTING UP

Girl 2: Just gonna get a drink…

CAMERA TRACKS HER OUT

LONG SHOT OF DOOR

CANTED SHOT OF DOOR KNOB

MID SHOT OF GIRL 3

Girl 3:  girls, I know, lets hide from her!

They all run out of the room laughing.

Girl 2 re-enters

MID SHOT OF GIRL WITH DRINK

PANNING OF EMPTY ROOM

CLOSE UP PUTTING DRINK DOWN

CLOSE UP OF FACE

Girl 2: Playing hide and seek are we?

Puts hand over face (grinning)

Girl 2: One

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: you can run

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl2: Two

EDIT

BLACK SCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: But

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Three

EDIT

BLACKSCREEN WHITE WRITING

Writing: You can’t hide

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Five, six, seven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL UNDER A BED

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: nine, ten, eleven

CUT

MID SHOT OF GIRL RUNNING DOWN THE STAIRS

CUT

CLOSE UP OF GIRL 2 FACE

Girl 2: Thirteen, fourteen, fifth teen

CUT

GIRL RUNNING INTO A ROOM PANICING GOSE TO THE CUBOARD AND GETS INIT

P.O.V FROM GIRL OPENING THE CUBOARD

This is the first part of the script for our thriller opening. It was completed by Rachel Hatter and Ellie Clark.

Planning - Our Final Idea (How we came up with the Idea)

We started thinking of Ideas in our group, and began to use the Internet to look up Scary stories and Thrillers, this inspired us as there were many tension building, clever stories in which we could change and twist to make it our own. The website we used to find these scary stories was: 
                                                         
                                                           www.everythingscary.com 
    

 The story, we all agreed to use and apapt (change) was 'bless you':  

Bless you: 

 Jamie was playing hide-and-seek at a slumber party with a
few of her young friends.
“I’m going to count to twenty,” said Annie, “then I’ll come
and find everybody.” She clamped her hands over her eyes and
then sat down on the couch.

Jamie sighed because she knew
that Annie would peek through the small crevices of her fingers,
but she ran away excitedly anyway.

“One, two, three…” counted Annie as Jamie ran up the stairs
and frantically searched for somewhere to hide. Not just
anywhere, but somewhere good. Somewhere that would take a
little searching to discover.

“Four, five, six…”
Brittany dove onto the sofa and buried herself beneath a
quilt. Sarah crouched beneath the kitchen table. Mandy dashed
for the hall bathroom. Frustrated, Jamie darted down the
hallway, not knowing where she was going. Time slipped by and
she was still out in the open, exposed.

“Thirteen, fourteen…”
She passed by the hall closet. From what she could
remember, it was actually quite large inside. It was used for
storage. As a last resort, Jamie turned around and slipped inside
without turning on the light. With the door closed behind her,
she sat down in the inky darkness and waited.

The rest of the house was exceptionally muffled, and the
hum of silence inside the closet was almost deafening. Jamie felt
a tickle in her nose. She plugged her nose to quell the sneeze,
but it was inevitable. As soon as she removed her fingers, it
exploded from her nostrils.

“Bless you,” said a gravelly voice from somewhere in the
darkness.
Before Jamie could scream, there was a pair of strong hands
around her neck. And then she fell into a much deeper, blacker
darkness.

We found this story very clever and effective and this inspired us the most!