In the last week, me and my group have been working on a similar media works power point,as well as a film breif and storyboard, our film breif consisted of what the storyline would be explaining the overview of the entire film and what happens in in the opening of our film.When working on the powerpoint our group used the gant chart to our advantage and organised ourselves well,to make sure that the work load was shared equally. I managed to do around four or five slides within the powerpoint to make the work easier for the erst of my group. I also did a slide on the opening three minutes for 'The lost boys' in 1987.

Horror re-make

The group i am working in have been Creating and studying our horror re-make of the first opening two and half minutes of saw for the last two weeks, the re-making has helped us great amount, We have become more familiar with camera shots and angles and using editing programmes. I think that our group have worked well, by using our gant chart we have worked and devised a good working plan to make sure that everybody is wokring well and fairly within the group. I have been working on the group Media works presentation for aroudn the last week and a half, i have managaed to four pages including History of horror, genre's and storylines and characters. The media works presentation has needed a lot of working as it involves a lot of secondary research, which is easier to do within a group. We have also become more familiar with the Adobe Premier programme which we found we had trouble with in our previous work the Preliminary task. We are now more familiar with it and know we can develop our work to a better standard, by working as a group we can have more input into the production and work out how we can do it to a good standard. We have used some of the audio from the real movie 'Saw' by editing the audio to show that we have used and developed our ideas with the real film, we have been looking into the film on youtube, whilst editing our opening re make to make it seem more realistic and well known to us, we want to show that we know this film well and have developed our ideas by learning new things.

Preliminary Task Video - Did You Bring It?

Preliminary Task

Unit G321 Preliminary Task AS Media Studies
Preliminary Task Evaluation


I believe that my piece of film demonstrates continuity well, the piece of film carries on from scene to scene with no gaps in between, the continuity has been demonstrated well, this is mainly because of the editing programme that I used, this helped to look at the piece of film with sound clearly, by doing so this helped to look at the continuity through the piece of film, therefore helping the over all piece of film have continuity through out the piece of film. Separating the cameras into folders helped pick out each clip that the group needed in order to make sure that the piece of film had continuity making it easier and less confusing to fit together. After reviewing our film we also found a fault from our piece of film, at the beginning the door slams twice, this disregards the continuity for our film, but due to the lack of time we had, we felt that it was to late to change this and with music we felt it was not a major issue to fall back on.

We have demonstrated match on action throughout the film, however this is more of a difficult technique to show through out the piece of film we have created, the shot reverse shot has been shown through our piece of film, having three cameras, one to the left with a close up as well as to the right and one in the middle of the scene showing a medium shot of the two characters, having three camera help’s create the shot reverse shot, match on action as well as the 180- degree techniques more easily, however all of these techniques can be challenging to get into one piece of film but with these editing techniques are very helpful because it makes the scene run throughout with no gaps in between, it also makes the film feel more realistic as well as filmed well, cutting and using these editing techniques makes the piece of film more studied.

I feel that the group I worked in could have worked better, however every person was willing to have a go at a part of editing the film. I think working in a large group can sometimes make it difficult for things to be done fairly as well as equally, this has taught me to join a smaller group within the future or to create a time scheme for when people can edit the programme, making this fairer and people feeling more involved. Despite all of this I think that my group did pull together and create a good enough piece to present, but this has been a learning experience for all of us.

If I had the chance to film this piece again, I would definitely make sure that the lighting within the place that the scene was filmed was the same for each camera angle, this is because to have continuity in the film I think this could make a difference. I would also try and spend less time on the actors in the scene, as the less time you spend repeating the lines, is time that could be used on the editing which could affect the overall outcome of the film piece.

I think this video was planned considerably well. Being giving a script gave us a head start for filming the video, we knew how many actors to have as well as what to say. We also knew how many cameras to have as well as where. I think we could have improved on our video by placing the camera in the correct position, which could make our filming more accurate to show the 180- degree. However I think that the editing programme can affect the outcome of the video for the better also giving us an advantage. The plan for our video could have been progressed more, we could have thought of a better place to film as well as more characters to show how we had showed our, initiative throughout the filming.

The piece of film does use transitions, by juxtaposing the scenes together; separate parts of the story have been put together to create the story. Using the editing programme helped to use transitions correctly throughout the piece of film, transitions help to cut to the next scene, suggesting the passage of time. Creating the transitions helps make the piece more clear for the observer, however for our group we found this difficult because the programme did not run quickly, leading to the programme freezing which resulting in taking more time, which left us less time to improve on this.


I have learnt a lot about the editing software whilst doing the exercise, when I first starting using the programme I felt it was very challenging but working in a group makes things easier, with more input things can get done quicker as well as more thinking is involved to work things out. The editing programme is not very easy to get the hang of but I feel that my group worked well to learn throughout the exercise. Using this programme has helped me a lot for the future, I now know how to transfer the film clips from the camera on to the right drives on the computer, to then use the editing software. Whilst our group have created this video clip, I feel that we are still learning, but I think this is seen as a good thing, as the editing software is helping us to learn to therefore help us in future programmes to do more efficiently and with more confidence.

The technologies from the processing of the constructing of this film have been educational, I have learnt all of the features on the cameras, as well how to set out camera angles within the correct way. I have also learnt how to transfer filming from the camera on to the computer, in which transferring folder upon folder to save more time to use the editing programme. I feel that the member of my group, as well as myself are more familiar with the editing software as well as the technologies, giving us more confidence as well and familiarity with the programmes and camera facilities.

Intial planning ideas

I had to start thinking about ideas which i could share with my fellow group members, when doing so we firstly thought of the narrative,the target audience and the inspiration for our film. Our group got together during today and yesterday's lesson to sit and think of all our personal ideas and to try and get mostly all of them down on a peice of paper, using a mind map. This was worthwhile because each member got to input their own personal ideas which interlinked with group discussions as well as ideas.

Although working in a group can sometimes be hard when putting your own views across, but we found that giving eachother turn when speaking and inputting ideas we worked better as group. I put forward a name for the group because i thought coming up with a group name would get the group more excited about the final production. I came up with the name 'KingsFord productions' this was interlinking all of the members previous school's together. My group was happy with this idea of mine and we all decided to progress with it and have it as our official group name. We also thought about a group for our horror movie and reasons for this. We thought about something to do with the word 'bodies' indicating death.


This is a printscreen to show my mind map that i have created on a word document to collaborate all of my ideas together for the process of my group's final produdction of a movie trailer for a thrillier.



We have later decided to create a gant chart to progress for our planning,we want each member of our group to have an equal share of the work load, so to do this a gant chart will make this more fair.

Analysis of 'The Lost Boys'

The Lost Boys 1987
This is a 1980’s American horror film, directed by Joel Schumacher. Like many other horror films the typical target audience would be young people of both genders. The title of the film ‘Lost Boys’ instantly plays with the audience’s emotions leading to insecurity and unawareness of who the boys are and what the word ‘lost’ implies, the title also creates a sense of fear for the audience, letting them use their imagination to connect the title and the story line together for the film.

For the first 23 seconds we are shown the presentation of the beginning using a background of black deep water with the film’s title ‘The Lost Boys’ in a bright white font with a red line running through the middle. Being on water gives the viewer a feeling of eerie isolation and the symbolic sense that something dangerous could have happened beneath the water or in connection to it. The use of the red line running between the middle could also connote danger or even death, the colour red being alarming to the audience in contrast to the black water and white writing connoting innocence.

The scene then uses an establishing shot of a fairground to accentuate the darkness with the bright lights creating a contrast between night and day, denoting night time. The camera is panning across at a high angle shot almost like a bird’s eye view. The music in the background becomes clearer, a soft low key sound using children’s voices singing, this goes with the typical generic conventions of horror films, children singing is not usually related to horror, but with youthfulness and happiness, however in this context, it has the effect of creating an uncomfortable, tense uncertain atmosphere.

This scene is the opening scene which sets up the narrative for the rest of the film. The mise en scene is a fairground, a carousel, with shots of children enjoying themselves, their parents looking on. This happy family scenario is interrupted by a shot, close-up of the pole on the ride up to a man dressed in dark black clothes with a big black coat and gloves, with bright white hair. The set-up suggests that this character will be the antagonist. His unusual physical appearance (an albino) is often representative of a ‘bad guy’ indicating that he is dangerous and we should be skeptical of his presence, This sequence is accompanied with diegetic music of fairground noise, however the shot of the antagonist is accompanied with high pitched non-diegetic music which adds to the audience’s feeling of peril or jeopardy. There is also another guy who is introduced to the audience just moments after the first character, also dressed in black, only seen vaguely as this shot has been faded out, showing us that the first character is more important within the scene than the second.

Using a high angle shot across light blue glaring water,the camera pans to reflect the danger of water once again, denoting it is during the day time, subtitles are shown using a white font which is also underlined to show the opening. The camera then uses a bird’s eye view zooming into a long winding road with driving cars denoting that there are characters within the film that are on a road trip or heading somewhere, the us of a trailer on the back of it indicates this.

The camera then cuts to another shot revealing to the audience that there are three characters in the car a man, boy and a women who is driving, the woman is dressed in a pale cream cardigan over a light blue top with jewelry and short cropped hair, the light pale clothes present the female character as innocent and pure, the female character is also reflecting happiness through her smiley facial expressions as she is driving the vehicle singing to the diegetic sound coming out from the radio in the car. The boy sitting in the passenger seat is young and fresh faced around twelve or thirteen. He is dressed in a pale colored shirt, pastel pink, with short neatly cut hair. He is smartly dressed this emphasizes his youthfulness and innocence; he still looks like he is looked after by his mother and cared for very well. The man sitting in the behind passenger seat is dressed in a pale grey t-shirt, with long hair, because the woman is driving, this could show that the woman has more authority and he is lower down than her, however the male character could also be seen as more important because he has people doing thing for him. The three characters give a sense of the stereotypical happy family going on a summer vacation, the woman singing along with the two other characters joining in emphasizes the happiness of all the characters, this also bring a sense of enjoyment for the audience, feeling their happiness.

There is also a dog in the back with the male character, connoting that they are going away and are comfortable enough to bring their pet with them. The music is faded in and out from the scene as the characters speak, for example when the boy asks the mother a question and then replies ‘it smells like someone’s died’ denoting the place they are heading Is unsafe . A close up of the male character’s face reflecting curiosity is used to arise suspicion towards the audience, changing location to outside the car onto a large wall post painted ‘welcome to Santa Carla’ in bright vibrant orange, reflecting an old fashioned holiday welcome in sign, panning to the back of the wall post which has ‘murder capital of the world’ written in capitals across it, the bright red paint connotes danger and death with a black outline.

Whilst the family go through the town in the vehicle, the first people we come across are two men, one leaning against a car and the other a wall smoking, they look like typical casual neighborhood people in the town, the camera then flicks to a man standing crossed armed looking bemused, he has a dark checked shirt on with a black Mohican hair style, he looks like he is waiting around for something and does not give off a good vibe in contrast to the other town people.

A group of mixed people are shown immediatly grabbing the audeince's emotives of curiosity. They are walking around the town dressed in bright colours such as white, orange, pinks and blues with caps and sun glasses connoting that these people are on holiday having fun and are innocent.Changing the location of the camera reflect the importance of characters throughout.Two women are shown at a low angular mid shot addressing them in black sun glasses ,black leather jackets and short cropped hair, they look almost like a team in connection to the other man the camera showed before, this leaves the audience to use their imagination connecting these character together in contrast to the others. The camera then locates to a bearded man in glasses with a hood up looking conscious as a close up, representing that he could be an important character to remember, as we are shown this man for a split second we are moved on to another character, also as a close up. She is wearing a black scarf and a large black cross in her left ear, she also has thick black eye liner on matching her short cropped dark hair, using these darks accessories connoted death and fear. We then see another two male character sitting on the floor leaning against a wall smoking at mid shot with a car going through the road, the angles that are used to show the audience the type of town the place is and the type of people live their or go for a vacation, using establishing shots it lets the audience know what is going on and where we are in the scene, connoting importance within the shot towards the audience, it also helps the audience feel more involved and familiar within the scene. The scene then cuts to a completely location, to the fair but in day light this time, the camera uses an establishing shot to show us where we are, the same extra diegetic high pitched music is faded in as the customers are screaming on the fair wheel they are on. We then see a range of different people walking along the paths enjoying the scenery.

The camera then uses a close up on a long haired bearded man looking cross as well as angry, he looks mysteriously away from the camera as if he is looking at other people or something which holds importance, then camera then glances to a couple standing and talking, the male is dressed in a black cap and t- shirt, the female character is dressed in black also with black eye make-up, t-shirt with a dark green shirt over the top. More subtitles appear on the screen in a bright white, capitals connoting innocence, as well at the subtitles then camera moves across a notice board that is in the village which is covered in newspaper cutouts and posters for missing people. The first one is of a young girl in her early teens in black and white, there are around ten or more poster signs for other people of mainly girls and a few men, the poster that is in the middle appears to be very old of two young girls connoting that this place that the family are traveling into is a bad decision, and is regretful. The camera then uses a high angular mid shot of just a baby in a pram for around 3 seconds indicating the innocence of the villagers and the danger, using a baby shows the innocence of the victims and babies are seen as innocent, un harmful and a gift, connoting the next target could be anybody.
The signs in contrast to the baby in the scene shot the differences between the targets on the board from the ages.

In conclusion to this all of the aspects of the Mise-en-scene are used to create a build up of tension,the opening scene uses typical conventions to show a 1980's horror film,using sound,lightin,costumes and extra-diegetic sounds.The opening mis lead's the audience enticing them in to watch more to get to the climax of the film.