Abduction: Film

Finalised Poster

Following the research into both posters for psychological thrillers swell as the audience feedback which we have used, below is the final design which we have used as part of our ancillary texts.

Abduction: Evaluation 4

Abduction: Evaluation 3

Transcript:

Audience Feedback has played a prominent role within the creation of our media product and helped us through many stages of our media production, the first of these stages was following our initial idea which was a plot which revolved around a man receiving an unknown briefcase and then being hunted down by two supernatural twin entities until finally he was able to kill one but the other one would reveal himself at the end in a dramatic twist that there were actually two antagonists the entire time. This plot was very much overly ambitious and required many actors and numerous locations and even a choreographed fight scene, and whilst i had felt this was a good idea at the time albeit difficult to shoot following showing others the storyboards for this film and their feedback that the plot felt convoluted and did not adhere to the forms and conventions I had established of short films. It was clear that a new idea would be needed and at this point our group came up with the concept of ‘Abduction”which was following the audience feedback was a lot simpler with a lot less characters and locations. Following the creation of this concept and some brief test footage, we decided to take a second sample of audience testing following extensive research into who our likely demographic would be. We then created a survey which we distributed to those who had seen the test footage with responses being a lot more positive than our initial feedback. This batch of audience feedback proved pivotal as through the feedback it was clear many felt our protagonist was too young to believably be a husband and so we adhering to this feedback re drafted our script replacing the husband with a son in order to make it more believable.

Once this closed feedback was done we then decided to make use of social media as a platform for audience feedback, most notably Facebook, by creating a group on Facebook with several people who fell into our target audience demographic. This gave us a larger sample size of our target market and through this we were able to have a constant source of audience feedback very much akin to crowd sourcing websites, Following the feedback of the survey we then gave a draft of our script with the amendments which had previously been sent. This was met with resounding approval highlighting to our group that we were on the right track. We then used audience feedback to shape our ancillary texts, most notably the poster, When creating the poster we were uncertain as to which image would resonate the most with our target audience and following our research into the conventional movie posters we narrowed it down to two key images the first of which was our protagonist lying on the sofa and the second was our protagonist standing at the bulletin board. Following the poll it was apparent that the image which resonated with our target audience the most was our protagonist at the bulletin board.

Overall audience feedback has shaped our media production from the very beginning of our media production through to the end. From the audience feedback i have learnt a great deal in regards to the advantages of having audience feedback and how it can be used as a tool when creating media productions, i have also learnt the advantages and benefits of using analytics to determine key demographics and also how effective they can be. I have also learnt how crowd sourcing techniques can benefit media productions and they would not be possible without todays online society.

Abduction: evaluation 2

Transcript:
Throughout our media production one of our main objectives was to create a full media product in which all aspects compliment one another, once we had finalised our idea of “Abduction” and it had been filmed our main task was to create ancillary texts which not only complemented but enhanced our overall media product. Prior to creating the poster we first had to establish the key elements of posters within our media production’s genre, through doing this we found that they mainly consisted of dark ominous colours which contrasted with lighter aspects within the image and thusly would captivate the audience’s attention, and to further this we made the quotes which praise our film in a bright colour contrasting against the dark vignette surrounding our central image.



Synergy between our main product and our ancillary texts was of paramount importance to us, Through incorporating stills of our film throughout the review we also serve to capture the viewers attention whilst the large golden stars provide a quick summary of the reviews opinions, this quick summary was one of the key elements which we had found from our research into film reviews,


 one of the other key aspects was the use of emphatic language and unique similes which serve to add a personal touch to the review, this use of emphatic words in turn provided us with unique quotes with which we could surround our poster.


 The central image of our poster is also a direct still from our film however it is also ominous in nature serving to highlight the element of mystery whilst also providing a brief insight into what our media production may consist of without giving away any key elements of the plot. We also throughout the review hint at pivotal scenes within the film in ways which we hope will gain audience attention, we also make use of a similar title font in all three of our media products in order to create a form of brand synergy.

Abduction: Evaluation 1

Transcript of Evaluation question one:

Throughout the course of filming “Abduction” we knew that in order to create a media product which we felt was of a high quality we would have to address the forms and conventions of other real media products within the same genre as our media product, In our case this was the Psychological thriller genre, Through our research into this genre we had to establish some key elements of this genre and also of Short films in general in order to create a media product which was true to our task. In order to do this we began to look at various different psychological thrillers such as Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” through looking at this film we established that psychological thrillers very much deal with the protagonists sanity this is an idea we begin to explore within our media production and is mainly done through our protagonists friend, an ancillary character who in many respects, represents society and how they would view a man in our protagonists situation as crazy and would not believe him, whilst we incorporate this convention within our film we also challenge it. We challenge this convention as in the end our protagonist is in fact abducted highlighting to us a viewer that he was in fact sane and did not need to question his own sanity near the climax of the film, this was conveyed when he began to tear down his notice board. Another convention which we use within our film is that of using filters to convey different mental states, this is a convention which we use within our media project with the dark blue filter used to highlight our protagonists bleak outlook and mental state, this then stands in contrast with the natural lighting of our ancillary character and also with our protagonist after he has sought help from his father. Our film however is not only a psychological thriller but is also a short film and as such following research into short films we established a series of forms and conventions for short films, One of the most notable conventions of short films would have to be the incorporation of a plot twist usually in the climax of the film, this is a convention which we strongly adhere to within our media production as we have our protagonist denounce his belief in aliens only for the twist to be that he was right all along although he finds out through his own abduction. Another Convention which we had established within Short films was the minimal use of characters and also locations, This convention in some aspects we do adhere to however we also develop it as rather than have every character reside on screen as we have not only our protagonist’s father reside off screen with the only contact being through a phone, we also have our alien the primary antagonist for the film preside off screen allowing us to create a sense of mystery within our film working in tandem with the convention of psychological thrillers that there must be a sense of mystery which we further expand upon by having our film begin with an ominous opening sequence which feels almost separate from the narrative which we are telling. Through having our Alien reside off screen we are also challenging forms and conventions of traditional modern science fiction films which place these elements at the forefront and boast large special effects driven sequences, another convention of science fiction films which we challenge is that they do not necessarily have to take place in “a galaxy far far away” with outlandish futuristic societies we instead adopt a more grounded approach similar to smaller science fiction films such as “ Ex Machina” where in the science fiction element is very much subtle for the most point with the main focus being on the character interactions rather than large scale sequences. Our film however does play into the convention that many science fiction films such as terminator 2 have which is that the person who believes in the existence of the science fiction entity  is lauded as being crazy or mentally ill by those within society until they too see it at which point the protagonist is accepted into society, however where our film differs is that our protagonist never receives recognition from the society that he in fact was correct but rather he conforms to societies belief that he is troubled mentally and therefore in a way we challenge this convention.

Soundtrack

Following the soundtrack inspiration, We then created a soundtrack using various instruments from garageband and also by using a midi keyboard for the synthetic sounds.

Poster Analysis: Science fiction

As our film is an amalgamation of both the psychological thriller and science fiction genres and as such we would like our poster to reflect this and therefore following our analysis of a psychological thriller poster we must also analyse a science fiction poster. The poster which i have chosen to analyse is the poster for  "The fourth kind"

Film review

Here is the final review for our film Abduction.

Poster analysis: Psychological Thriller

When creating the ancillary texts for our film we felt that in order to create an effective poster for our film we would have to look at other posters within our genre and establish key elements.

Following my analysis of the film "Shutter Island", I felt due to the similarities of our films, looking at how the film was marketed to audiences through the poster and also what the key elements of a psychological thriller poster would be.

Film review analysis

When writing our film review we must first look at how a film review is presented within a newspaper article.

Abduction: Adding filters/colour association

Due to our film taking place primarily within a house the setting did not vary that much, therefore in order to make our film more visually appealing we decided to use filters in some areas of our film, the most notable of which is the "Cast" filter which we mainly used in the first half of "Abduction" in order to mimic the effect of an idle television, however we also made use of the dark filter and other dark colours in association with our protagonist to highlight his deteriorating mental state.

This stands in contrast with the more vibrant colours associated with David's friend in order to represent that he is our protagonist's main hope for over coming his depression, this is most notable in the scene when he asks for the light to be turned on as he is in some ways casting off the dark dreary colours associated with our protagonist and this is further reinforced in the second half of our project when our protagonist now is in a better mental state and therefore the colours associated with him are brighter.

Abduction: Creating the alien

When creating the concept of Abduction we knew that crating the alien or signs of alien life would be a difficult task. We had initially thought of using pre existing alien images to show alien life however we felt this was both impractical and also was not of the highest quality and also due to the low budget which we had creating our own alien using special effects and CGI was out of the question as creating an authentic looking alien would take resources we did not have. Therefore in order to get around this we have decided to only allude to the Alien. we have done this through two main ways the first of which is to Preface our film with a scene showing what the alien life would entail in our film giving our audience a small tease of what would be at the end of our film.


Secondly when wanting to establish the alien presence we made use of filters and sound effects in post production using final cut pro in order to create an atmosphere that something is wrong or out of place this is in place throughout most notably at the end just before our protagonist is abducted.

Abduction: audio redubbing

Due to recording using a mic which was built in to our camera we found ourselves facing audio issues in that many pieces of dialogue were distorted or muffled due to distance as did some of the sound effects We also found ourselves having to re-record audio due to having to edit clips and some of the sound being lost due to this. To make a higher audio quality we decided to use foley work in order to recapture the sounds and create a higher quality of sound.

What is Foley work

Foley is the reproduction of common everyday sounds within film, many film productions make use of foley and employ people specifically for the foley work as it can drastically improve the quality of the film.

How did we use Foley

In order to capture our new re dubbed audio we used the audacity software and the voice memos software found on iOS devices as we were using the Final Cut Pro software for postproduction.

Abduction: Shot stabilisation/ adding slow-motion

A challenge which we faced was once we had filmed the shots which we planned to use, Some of the shots however were not smooth enough and due to being unable to film for continuity reasons we decided to make use of the shot stabilisation feature within final cut pro which was our editing software this allowed us to make what would have been an unusable shot into one of high quality.

Another problem which we faced was that one of our scenes in which a bin was falling over, the main problem was that the shot was too quick and did convey what was happening to the audience as well as we would have liked. In order to counteract this we added a slow-motion effect which allowed us to prolong the shot and allow our audience to have a better grasp on what is happening within the shot.

Filming Day

When it came to filming the product using the storyboards and the script we had established in many respects we had relative ease, however one area which we could have improved on was our lighting and also our pacing when saying lines and due to the dark lighting of areas we may need to reshoot. Through using the risk assessment which we had earlier created we were able to avoid any major injuries which could occur and due to our location factors such as weather did not have an effect on our filming schedule allowing for an efficient filming process.

Below is a list of props which we needed for filming:
Dressing gown
Alcohol bottles
Printed paper
A knife
A laptop
Two phones one of which is landline and the other which is portable
Protagonist will need to bring a change of clothes to change into in order to convey that time has passed since we had previously seen him.

Abduction final Script

Scene 1: Unknown

Fade into night in a suburban neighbourhood as we then go to a house within the estate, A strange alien noise can be heard as a large bin is thrown over. The camera then pans up to a bright light which suddenly goes out.

Scene 2: An unexpected caller

the scene begins on a static television and begins to pan down to our protagonist lying on a seat surrounded by pieces of paper. Our protagonist (David) then proceeds to awake but in doing so drops several papers onto the floor. As he goes to pick them up a phone call can be heard, David frantically runs towards the phone before picking it up, The alien sound from the beginning of the film can be heard as David is visibly shocked.

Following this David rapidly types a number into the phone before saying

David: "Hello, I need you to come over"

Scene 3 David and his friend

The scene opens with David sitting at his computer researching the alien noise he had just heard. there is then a knock on his door after hearing this David picks up a knife sitting beside him and places it in his pocket before going to answer the door, hesitant as to what may be on the other side.

When David opens the door he finds his friend Paul at the door.

Paul (disgusted): Jesus, you look terrible, can i come in?

David: Yeah, come on.

David and Paul make there way into the dark room David was previously in, upon entering the room Paul is shocked at the state of the room with alcohol and pages littered everywhere.

Paul: Can we get some lights on please, its horrible in here!

David: Yeah sure if you want

David then turns a light on and both sit down.

Paul: What is it you need to tell me?

David: I heard them again!

Paul (sarcastically): Who?, The aliens?

David (aggravated): Don't say it like that, I know what I heard.

Paul (taking notice of the alcohol): Ah yes, you've been tracking them, listen- I know it has been a while but- (noticing the knife and recoiling) Jesus where did you get that?.

David says nothing but bows his head in a mixture of shame and embarrassment at what he has become

Paul: Look at yourself, you've been drinking, you've got that board of nonsense out there and you're carrying a knife for god sake

David (defensively): If you aren't gonna hear me out, Get out!

Paul: Fine, Listen its been a year since your mum left, talk to your dad he will help you.

Paul then exits leaving David alone to realise what he has become. David then takes out his phone and calls his father.

David: Hi dad it's me can you come over?

Scene 4: The abduction

A considerable time has past and David has now reintegrated back in society and the room is well lit, David is on the phone to one of his friends, herring a knock on the door he goes to answer it when he is suddenly engulfed in a sea of bright flashing colours, the screen then fades to black before returning on David's jacket and phone lying on the ground before the film cuts to black

Abduction: Risk assessment

Before filming out project we understood that as a safety precaution we would need to assess the risks involved both to all those involved and also to the filming equipment. We also felt we would need to detail the steps involved to counteract these risks and have displayed this in the table below.

Abduction: Audience feedback continued

Following the survey which we issued to those within the group we then after the amendments we made placed in another version of the script which we altered in order to gauge their feedback.

we also then made use of our group in order to determine which image we would then use for our poster.

Abduction: Creating the alien sound

In order to create the Alien sound effect that our protagonist David would hear we decided to use the Audacity software and create the noise by using an amalgamation of both foley and digital sounds. For the distorted aspect we decided to use a Hair dryer and cover the mic to make it sound suppressed and add authenticity to the sound. We also used various sounds found online to add a high pitched aspect to it in order to add a traditional sci-fi element to the sound.

Abduction: Changes for Practicality

When faced with filming Abduction we were unable to find an actor to believably portray a man  dealing with the loss of his wife and so in order to take audience feedback onboard we decided to alter our concept to instead focus around a son who had lost their mother in order to use the actors which we had in a believable way rather than perhaps bring our audience out of the film by casting an actor who could not believably portray this role. This also allowed us the ability to use the protagonist's friend and later his father as a means for him to seek help when he seeks it.

Audience feedback

Following the establishment of our target audience in our previous post we feel that in order to make sure our media production will meet the expectations of our target audience we will set up a platform by which we can receive ongoing feedback.


In order for us to receive audience feedback we have decided to make use of social media and through platforms such as Facebook we will aim to have ongoing audience feedback through all aspects of our media production such as the script, the poster and also the overall narrative of media production following showing test footage and storyboards to them.

we will also make use of online surveys in order to receive any constructive criticism that our target audience may provide throughout the process.

Abduction: Investigating Aliens

In order to convey the fact that our protagonist is studying aliens in an authentic way we decided that the best way to do this was to research websites online which revolve around sitings of extraterrestrial life, in order make make a more believable charter, this also gave us inspiration for our notice board with various articles coming from websites which focus on these conspiracy theories.

Abduction: soundtrack inspiration

For our soundtrack we decided that an ethereal synthetic approach would fit the tone of film we are making similar to sci-fi films such as Alien and The terminator aswell as television shows such as The Knick.

Abduction set design: Newspaper clippings

In order to immerse our audience within the film and establish our protagonist as being almost fanatical about alien life and conspiracy theories. We decided to use newspaper articles to add to the atmosphere of the film and allow for the protagonists sanity to be called into question further.

Abduction: Costume

David (Protagonist)
For our protagonist we have decided that we would use his clothing to further emphasise his mental instability by making him appear dishevelled and unkempt taking inspiration from mentally unstable individuals from various films such as "The one who flew over the cuckoo's nest" and "K-Pax".

However following his radical change in thought we want him to appear more well dressed and casual as though he has reintegrated into society.




Shaun (secondary character)
For David's friend shaun we want the audience to be able to see the stark differences between the characters through their contrasting appearances whilst David is unkempt and dishevelled shaun contrasts with this through appearing tidy clean and well groomed highlighting how he is more together in terms of his mental state. We believe that the contrast would be similar to that of the characters Jimmy and Chuck from the television show "Better call Saul".

Abduction: storyboards

Below are the Finalised storyboards for our film Abduction.

Abduction: First Draft Script

Below is the script for my A2 media project "Abduction"

Fade in to the interior of a house, the blinds are drawn, in the middle there is a man on the floor hunched over with a photo of his wife in his hands

David: 'I'll find you'' He repeats unnervingly

He reaches around for a beer and knocks several old cans over and sighs 

He gets up to get another and as he enters the kitchen the kitchen his phone rings. He rushes to the phone but doesn't get there in time.

David: 'That could've been her' and he throws the picture away and it shatters.

We then see him go upstairs to his computer to check his emails but a glimpse of an alien conspiracy website is shown before the camera pans up to reveal a large chalk board with various alien sightings and symbols displayed.

The phone rings again and he rushes to get it. When he picks up there is silence for a couple of seconds.

David: 'Hello'

Voice on the phone: [what follows is incomprehensible alien language]

The man hangs up the phone and is visibly shocked and then precedes to call his friend 

Man: 'Its them I've got proof'

His friends Shaun calls round and is repelled/visibly disgusted at the state of the house 

Shaun: 'Well where is it'

David: 'Here I record all calls in and out'

Shaun: 'Wait your telling me an alien phoned you

David: 'Yes that's right'

Shaun: 'on this phone,this disconnected phone'

David: 'Yea...'

Shaun: 'Look, okay we let you believe this for a while maybe it was a grieving mechanism... but now its went too far. David she left you, okay you have to come to terms with it. She's gone they found her car two cities over, you have to stop this its destroying you. You've lost your job and your alienating everyone around you. so come on stop this madness and come outside. Look, tomorrow morning I'll give you a lift round to the clinic and they will be able to help you overcome this.'

David: 'O-okay'

Shaun gives him a hug and leaves

Later that night David hears the phone ringed and hears his wife voice. 'come outside honey, don't be afraid.'

David: 'No,no you're gone Shaun told me'

David throws the phone across the room but she can still be heard as she becomes more distorted. Eventually he gives in and opens the door only to be engulfed in a white light with similar alien noises being heard before fading to black.

Abduction: Target audience