Apparition Final Film Opening

Here is our final film opening; Apparition. 

It is 2 minutes and 42 seconds, with 40 seconds of the film opening being production, marketing and distribution companies. 

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 7

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

Preliminary Video here

Looking back at our preliminary, this was rather basic. We only used over the shoulder shots, mid shots, long shots and close ups; which that when watching it - it became visually unappealing for the audience to view. 

The music we chose didn't fit the theme of the preliminary and we only included this at the beginning, not throughout; which is something that is hardly, if ever, done. Non diegetic sound is usually, in some form, heard in the background - as it adds to the scene and evokes feeling/emotion. 

When filming some of the shots, the character talking wasn't in the center of the shot, which is quite distracting for the audience and is a amateurish thing to do. This was a mistake we noticed easily, and tried not to do the same in our final film opening.

Our attempt at shot reverse shot wasn't the best and so we also wanted to show this in our film opening, but better and more dynamic. 

In our film opening, it's clear that we've proved hugely on both our camerawork and editing. 

Using a variety of angles and shots such as high angle, over the shoulder, tracking, panning and P.O.V (point of view) made our film opening visually pleased for the audience and kept them focused.

We spent more time on our editing, this time slowing down shots, changing the lighting and changing the chronology of the storyline to create tension. 

The storyline for our final film opening was more interesting than our run of the mill storyline for our preliminary. I've found that having a more intricate storyline allowed us to create and change things as we went, which meant that the final product had differed slightly from our original idea, but the idea was so broad allowed us to do this until we could hone in on a storyline that visually shot well. 

Foundation Portolio Evaulation: Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When creating our film opening, we had to use a variety of equipment, some I've never used before and some I have.

To film, we used the Sony Handycam HDR-CX210. This was quite easy to use; however the quality of the footage wasn't that great and it was the main thing that displeased our group when reviewing our work. 

I've used camcorders before so this wasn't anything new to me, however a constant battle we went through when filming was that it kept going out of focus; which was frustrating. 

We wanted to use a focus pull in our opening, but we were told that the camera equipment wasn't advanced enough to do this with; which was disheartening. 



We also had to use a tripod - this wasn't my first time using one as I previously used one before at my old school. There was a few slight differences, the old one I used was a lot more complex compared to this one; and had more sections to check was secure. 

This tripod was quite stiff when it came to rotating in up and down - panning across was fine; but tilting couldn't be down fluidly without some jerky movements being detected; which is unfortunately seen in our film opening.

Our only difficulty with the tripod was when we had created a custom height, so that the camera was tilted at a certain angle - this was difficult to either recreate or ensure that the frame was straight. 


I have only briefly used an Apple Mac before, so some of the actions was a bit confusing for me to use. Adjusting to the different keyboard actions, for example; there being no print screen button and instead having to key in a combination. 

The layout of icons and storage was a bit confusing when trying to upload things, as we weren't sure where they were at times, but after using these for just under two months - I got the hang of it quite quickly.

iMovie was the software we had to use to edit our film and it was something I had never used before, so we spent sometime practising with it just to ensure we knew the basics.

I wasn't happy with how basic the software was, something such as Final Cut Pro would have been better for us to edit our film opening - as we would have had a lot more variety and different editing techniques; rather than basic transitions, colour washes and titles etc. 

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience? 

I decided to go through our film opening, shot by shot, similar to our storyboard to explain how we attracted, addressed and related Apparition back to our target audience of young adults, from late teens to late twenties.

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

This is our typical audience member - young adults between the ages of sixteen and their late twenties. 

This picture shows a picture of our target audience which includes Alex on the far left and his girlfriend, Priya, in the middle with their group of friends - with whom they all attend university.

On the far left is Alex, he's twenty six and is from Manchester. He is currently studying to become a veterinarian after taking a few years off after sixth form to go travelling across the Far East - an experience he thoroughly enjoyed and will forever cherish. Despite his studious career path, Alex enjoys a mixture of comedies and thriller/horror films and TV shows to help him relieve the pressure of Uni life. Parks and Recreation and The Walking Dead are his two favourite shows which he rewatches constantly on Netflix; whilst his girlfriend can't bear to stomach the goriness of The Walking Dead - Alex can happily enjoy the hacking of zombies any time of day. His favourite films include; Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, The A-Team, The Last Airbender, The Shining, The Hangover trilogy and The Conjuring.

After viewing our film opening, he said; 'I enjoyed the suspense of not revealing who the villain was until the end; it keeps you wondering who it is and what they will do. I really want to watch the rest of the film! Will it follow on after this? Or jump back in time to explain what's happened? Please tell me!'





Priya in the middle wearing a blue vest, is twenty two and from Buckinghamshire. She is currently studying to become a corporate lawyer which she will hopefully achieve by the age of thirty. Priya enjoys psychological, science fiction, thriller and superhero films; however despite this her favourite TV shows include; American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Sherlock. Her favourite films include; Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, Gone Girl, The Godfather trilogy, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Jaws.

After watching our film opening, she said, 'I loved the suspenseful music that played throughout the buildup to the reveal of the villain - it really helped increase the paranoia felt and I felt like I was the main character, for a moment then! Really good camera angles too, some I haven't seen before.' 

Alex said that he enjoyed the ending, which linked back to our questionnaire of the majority of our target audience preferring cliffhangers at the end of an film opening to make them want to watch more. 

I think our film opening successfully reflected the opinions of our target audience as we tried to include a lot of things that they said they enjoyed in films, in our opening. I think we could have perhaps had a second character so that we could include diversity of social groups - however the storyline worked better with the same person playing both the protagonist and antagonist. 

The beginning of the psychological thriller film, Memento, begins using reverse chronology where the action starts from one moment usually one that is shocking and reverses back in time to show how it happened - this is similar to our film, expect we never showed the reverse aspect, but this would be something we'd go on to show. 

This targets our audience, because in the questionnaire, a lot said that they prefer when less information is given at the beginning so that they can try to figure it out as they go along which adds to the tension and fear. 

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 3

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

Most major films have more than one media institution who help produce, market and distribute their film, because each company does something different - which is why we chose to use two. We have decided to use Lionsgate and Vertigo Films as our distribution  companies.

Lionsgate Films is a Canadian-American production and distribution company founded in the 1960's. They focus on small, independent films - which is what Apparition is - and distributes them worldwide turning them into a commercial success. It's a well known company with many other smaller distributor companies working for them such as Alliance Films and Momentum Pictures.

Vertigo Films is a British film and production company founded in London in 2002. They also focus on small, unknown British films which have a mediocre to minimal funding budget; this fits with our film, Apparition. They have their own personal goal to produce and distribute four films a year with the help of Entertainment One - an international entertainment corporation. 


Our film will be a low budget film; which fits the criteria of Vertigo Films, it helps enforce the film being British and will therefore appeal to a British market. Lionsgate is Canadian and American and will help promote and distribute our film to a mass audience in commercial countries, such as America.  

We kept the font of our film opening the same, as this way this particular font can become synonymous with our film. 

All the titles shown were center this way, the audience would be forced to pay attention to the action happening behind it.

White was the colour we chose for the fonts as it stood out the clearest against the colours of the background and we also felt it looked more professional this way. 

We watched a variety of film openings to determine the order of the fonts and how they're worded, for example 'An Amelia Vidler Film' is often how directors take credit for their work. We named the actors and voice over actors as they appeared in the film opening - if doing this again and creating an entire film; we would add the names of all the actors that were going to appear rather than just the one you see in the first two minutes. 

This title sequence is from the thriller film, 'Shutter Island' whose title sequence is similar to ours. The title showing the title of the movie is written in red font, which could represent danger, blood and panic. The simplistic font highlights and draws attention to the name.

The font appears in the same font, however in white this time which shows that the title of the film is more important. 

The titles are also displayed over short, jump cuts of the main location of the film - a psychiatric facility. This helps sets the film without the use of a traditionally used establishing shot at the beginning of a scene. 

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

In our film opening we only have one actor who multi roles to play both the protagonist and antagonist. A few films have done this, like Buried, but it's quite rare, most have a character list of between 3 - 10, like 28 Days Later.





Both character A and B in our film opening represent the female gender; there are no men in the opening of Apparition, however both of these roles could have been played by a man. I think that by having a woman play these roles, we break away from the stereotypical convention of men getting the better roles compared to women. In thrillers, it's also more common for men to play either if not both the antagonist and protagonist. The antagonist is usually far more stronger than the protagonist and therefore is the main reason why males are usually chosen for this role; however by using a woman it shows that not only are females capable of playing the villain but they also don't have to rely on their own physical strength and violence to create suspense and tension for the audience to remain interested.

It's not made abundantly clear what class both character A and B are; we filmed in a fairly middle/working class area, where people aren't struggling to make ends meet, but also can't afford to live frivolously. This represents the status of most people in the UK, which also sticks to the conventions seen in most thriller films as they're supposed to be realistic and relatable for the audience. The costumes aren't ostentatious and are similar to the attire most people would wear on a daily basis. The neighbourhood is similar to one that most people are familiar with and so therefore the target audience feel more at ease as the mise en scene is something they can identify with. 

Race is another stereotype seen in a majority of films; whilst it's not strange or unfamiliar to see an all black cast, it's not something that happens often in the film industry. Most films that attempt this, either flop at the box office, are independently made so aren't as well known or only have a few main black characters. 

If we were able to continue this film, we probably wouldn't cast it as all black characters, because we could want racial diversity to be seen. However by having the first two minutes of the film just showing a black actress, it breaks the stereotype of seeing mainly an all white cast.