Final Product 'The Enemy'

Directors Commentary 'The Enemy'

In addition to our film we also created a directors cut which explains to the audience our thinking when editing the film which may not be clear at first glance to the audience.

What have you Learnt about Technologies from the Process of Constructing this Product

My skills with the camera have improved massively as I did most of the filming for our product, I experimented with many different camera angles and techniques. I learnt how to perfect match on action and edit it at just the right time to let the film flow. Our film contains a variety of angles from high angled shot to show isolation and a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the Ouija board to get everybody’s finger going onto the glass.

Camera Work

Panning

The clip starts off with Shell walking up the garden and into the shed, while she is doing this we pan around the garden and into a shot of the fish tank then onto the red hand prints on the wall. The red handprints represent blood and the desperation of trying to escape the shed. The panning theme continues through the titles and into the dialogue

Low Angle Medium Shot

We then see this low angled medium shot of Shell which shows her isolation and loneliness that she is feeling, also she is seated on the floor which represents that she is a lower rank in the group and therefore gets persuaded into doing the Ouija board.

Close Up

We follow this up with a close up of Josh persuading Shell that nothing bad is going to happen. We used a close up to show that Josh is intimidating Shell and forcing her into doing something that she really does not want to do.

Bird's Eye View

We used a Bird’s Eye View shot of the Ouija board, not only to show everybody’s finger going onto the glass, showing Shells finger last to show how reluctant she is to do the Ouija board but also it appears as though a spirit is watching down on them .

Over the Shoulder Shot

We used an over the shoulder shot, over Josh’s shoulder and onto Michelle while Josh is speaking to her. During this shot we see shell looking very hesitant to get involved with the board and she looks around to the other characters for assurance that it is going to be ok. We did this to keep displaying to the audience that Shell really did not want to take part in the process.

Close Ups – Fade to Blacks



These shots towards the end of our film pan around each character in their circle. In between each character we used the editing technique of fading it in from and out to black. We also inserted heartbeats in between each character to realy understand how they were feeling.

Also, my editing skills have come on hugely as I took most control over the editing and for us to fulfil our potential it needed to be up to scratch, along with the rest of the coursework. For our preliminary task we edited using Windows Moviemaker.

This was a very enjoyable experience and I felt I edited very successfully as our mark suggested, however as our skills were developing we decided to edit on a more advanced programme so for this piece of coursework we edited on Pinnacle.

We did this to try and not only enhance our video but enhance our own personal skills. We found Pinnacle to be a good challenge and extremely helpful in parts such as brightening some shots which had been shot in not very good lighting. We felt that on Pinnacle we had more control over our editing as we could control how things faded in and out for example and at what speed.

As a group we feel that this is one of our best pieces of editing within the film and this potrays best how much we have come on in both a filming and an editing sense.

What kind of Media Institution might Distribute your Media Product and Why?

We have decided to go for Vertigo Films to be our distribution company because there is definitely a gap in the market for this kind of film as they have a very limited history of British Horror Films. Also the only well known British Horror film they have distributed so far is ‘Shrooms’.

Link to Shrooms Trailer

Shrooms relates to our film quite well in that they are being taken over by an outside force, in their case magic mushrooms. Furthermore, in our film Michelle gets taken over by an outside force in the form of demons. Shrooms is classed as a psychological horrorand our film has the theme of demonic possession, which is why we feel we could take Vertigo to the next level because  psychological horror is the first step towards demonic possession.

Vertigo Films have a history of distributing low budget and gritty social realistic films which is exactly what ours is. It is a low budget film because as A level students we do not possess the funds to create a Hollywood blockbuster. Also the location of our film represents the gritty social realism within it.

This location runs parallel with the genre of our film as it is dark and only lit with limited candle light which represents limited hope for the characters. The limited lighting also represents that something is hidden which is later revealed at the end of our film that a demon is hidden inside of Shell.

Evaluation

Other Evaluation Questions have been gathered on Josh and Michelle's Blogs

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How did you attract/address your audience?
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media?

Who would be the audience for your media product?