Panophobia - final piece

Here is the final draft of our film opening, Panophobia.
In order to create a more realistic and rounded view of our character's friendship, we added clips of us around school together, and took more disposable camera photos.
Taking more disposable camera photos additionally allowed us to replace any original photos that were unclear/too dark to be seen properly, so with the help of my sister (as there was not a time that we three were all able to film together) I re-filmed five of the photos being set alight.
Alongside some editing changes, including cutting the whole thing down by about thirty seconds, the film title was placed after the titles stating the main actors, as the titles we based ours off (Gone Girl opening credits) put them in that order.

Classwork

The top photo is of Amara (with Phoebe's help) creating the interactive storyboard, and the bottom shot is of myself editing the montage scenes we filmed around school.

Locations

The locations we filmed in were:
Amara's bedroom - the "come home" plea
Tenpin Bowling arcade - memories montage & disposable camera photos
Great Baddow High School - memories/school montage & disposable camera photos

Interactive storyboard

Phoebe created this interactive storyboard for Panophobia.

Marketing - social media

To further promote our film, we had the idea of creating a Twitter account posting about the film - this is appropriate to our target audience as teens are the main users of social media, and Twitter is a popular site.
We created this image by cropping our own photos into a Twitter account template found on Google.

Marketing - Bus poster

Our first main marketing idea was to have our film poster on the side of a bus - we thought of this first as we constantly see school buses advertising the latest films, and it would effectively attract our target audience of teens/young adults.

Production diary

Our production diary from the 1st of December.

Filming the burning photos

For our third filming session (Saturday the 26th of November) we collected the photos which had turned out clearest and burnt them in Phoebe's back garden.
In order to do this safely, we burnt the photos on a stone patio so they would not land on any flammable materials.
Filming began at around 5pm, as we needed to ensure it was dark enough to look like night-time, and also so the flames would stand out more and give the darkened surroundings a more mysterious atmosphere.
The photos we used were developed with a matte finish, so although light reflection was lessened considerably, we had to hold the torch we were using at a very particular angle so that the glare wouldn't be extremely obvious.
To burn the photos we used two lighters, as halfway through filming the first lighter stopped working, and we had to be extremely careful not to burn ourselves with either.
Our roles were as follows:
Phoebe - holding the torch
Myself - filming
Amara - burning the photos.

Arcade filming

For our montage, the first idea we had was to film in an arcade, as we wanted a setting which would be bright and colourful, and enable us to have fun naturally so the three of us going on the games together didn't look forced in any way.

We filmed shots of each other on the games (with help from a friend who filmed all three of us at various points) using my Sony Cybershot DSLR camera, as it films in HD and gave us the clear and professional look we were going for.

 While we were there, we took the disposable camera photos to burn later. We took a variety of photos, mostly of us playing the arcade games.
Here is a photo Jess (the friend helping us film) took of me photographing Phoebe and Amara on my disposable camera, and below is one of the photos we took that turned out well.

Panophobia - First draft

This is the full first draft of our film opening, "Panophobia".
While I'm pleased with how it turned out overall, there a few things which we got negative feedback on, such as the photos being too dark and not being able to see them when turned around, and needing more footage as a group of friends hanging out, and not just at the arcade.

To improve this, we are creating another shooting schedule in order to re-film some parts, take more disposable camera photos and film them being burnt again.
During editing, I also plan to work more on the lighting and colour correction, and lower the music during some parts, as other feedback suggested it was too loud at some points and overpowered the voiceover.

Film poster

The is the poster for our film opening, titled "Panophobia".
We decided to make the poster fairly simple in order to create a feeling of mystery, which ties in to the actual plot of the film.
Underneath the title is the definition of panophobia, which we decided to include as our tagline as not only does it add authenticity to the poster but it gives us a clue about what the film is about.
The image of a disposable camera shot of three friends also shows the plot of the film, as does the match next to it which also adds mystery and enigma.

Panophobia feedback

What elements of this sequence did you feel were successful? Give at least two elements, and explain why they were successful.

"I liked the end scene of the phone being filmed and Amara holding the lighter - large element of suspicion - want to carry on watching."

"Very inventive titles.
The music was appropriate.
Good sense of enigma at the end.
Well edited - I liked how it was slightly jumpy and fast."

"- Love the voiceover.
- Clear title.
- True expression.
- Love the titles.
- Plea involves audience."

"- nice twists at the end, keeps people interested
- Good acting which added to the drama"


Were there any aspects of the sequence which you felt were confusing/distracting/missing, etc?

"Maybe too many blank screens so people think its over."

"At times the voice overs were not very clear."

"Didn't understand music - feel like you needed something more upbeat."

"I couldn't see the pictures when they turned them around."


List 2 things which you feel would have improved this sequence and explain your opinion.

"Shorten black screens."

"Make ending more clear that she is watching."

"Make the picture showing part longer."

"The audio could be a bit clearer."

Coursework - "come home" plea filming

We filmed the "come home" plea in Amara's room - we decided to use this location as it was the largest and most unobstructed room out of all ours, and had good lighting.
Additionally, we decided to use a bedroom in general as the video we were filming had to look like it was completely homemade by two teenagers, so it wouldn't be in a professional setting.

Whilst filming, we had to think carefully about the shots we wanted, as the room we filmed has two large mirrors facing each other - so we didn't catch the camera reflection or any of our equipment in the footage, we decided to film it facing the bed. We also had Amara behind the camera, in case her or her reflection in the mirror was caught on tape, as this would be almost impossible to edit out, and take additional time to re-film.

We created realistic "MISSING" posters to show during this video, to add authenticity. I made the most accurate poster I could by looking at different, real life missing posters online and seeing what kind of details they would have on there, what kind of photos, and the general layout and colours.

The photo at the bottom shows Phoebe looking at the scripts we made for this video - we wrote out a general outline of what we wanted to say, and folded our scripts behind the missing posters we were holding up in order to be able to look at them whilst hiding them from the camera.

Coursework - camera setup

These photos show the setup of the camera we used to film part of our film opening - the "come home" plea from Amber and Isla, addressed to Erin, which we then posted to YouTube. We had to film this in order to create a later scene, where an anonymous person (revealed to be Erin) is shown watching the video on their phone.

Our setup included my Nikon Coolpix (we decided to use a lower quality camera than my Sony Cybershot in order to make the video look suitably homemade compared to the rest of the footage) attached to a tripod - however, we found that part of the tripod kept falling slightly to one side and making the angle wonky, so we had to improvise by pushing a quality street sweet under the loose part in order to keep the camera stable, so that the shot was completely horizontal.

(Coursework) come home Erin

For the part of our film opening where Erin is shown watching a "come home" plea made by her friends, we filmed a real scripted video. We had to create realistic missing posters, scripts for our dialogue and a suitable setting. We also decided to use a lower quality camera, to make it seem realistically home made.
The finished video turned out the way we wanted, although it took some time to complete it - learning the script was quite difficult, as was acting in front of the camera. As a result we have a fair few outtakes.

Coursework planning - Plot & Titles