THE STEPS - FINAL FILM

9. PERSONAL RESPONSE

vid taken down.

8. AUDIENCE RESPONSE

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

Better camera work & editing was achieved with The Steps particularly in comparison to the preliminary task. This time instead of being hand held, a tripod was used to help keep the shot steady. A completely new tape was bought which made the film outcome from tape of a much higher quality than the original tape that was borrowed, and with much practice using iMovie HD how to use different editing techniques was learned.

There was much better organisation and time-keeping for the shoot of The Steps, having learnt from the last time. In finding time in our often conflicting schedules within the group, a solution was found by using Excel to create a table of when our free periods within school would correspond which helped us to meet up in our free time to work on our film together.

A film schedule was drawn out by the organiser to ensure that the day of the shoot would run smoothly as planned along with a risk assessment, so that we knew what to film when and wouldn’t waste time later deciding that.

Location shots were taken beforehand of different locations to decide which would be the best place to shoot rather than just choosing one at random. The group also learned to arrive before the cast and scope out the location of the shoot, and preparing the set before the cast arrived to save time and have a quicker shoot.

Another thing learnt from the preliminary task which was practiced in the post production of The Steps opening was valuing screen time and learning to cut out anything which was unnecessary for the story e.g. Extended footage of stock such as the sky and the foliage shots of the group from the killer – we learned to make every minute of the film count and add to our story.

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

During the production of our film opening The Steps, we found that Slideshare was not sufficient to keep copies of our work as we went along as it took too long to upload videos. Also, it was more efficient if we could have the same place that we’d all upload to – Photobucket was the option we settled upon. There we could upload newly edited clips, original footage from both cameras as well as the stills from the shoot.

We used the program iMovie HD for editing, as it was more convenient to the software of the Mac computers we were using and it had a wide variety of different editing effects; also it was much simpler and easier for beginners like us to use, which saved time as we were working to our coursework deadlines and may not have had time to spend figuring out how to use a more complex program e.g. Final Cut Pro.

The steps titling

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New line cinema

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Adobe Photobucket CS5 was used to edit the colouring of the New Line Cinema introduction, and then Adobe ImageReady to save it as a QuickTime movie that could be imported straight into iMovie HD after discovering that gifs wouldn’t work in that program. (This is explained further in other tutorial presentations). The same two programs were used, Photoshop to create the titles The Steps along with its effect and ImageReady so it could be saved as a QuickTime Movie.

Our film used media products of two different kinds of camera: we filmed part of our footage on tape, on a MiniDV 250 camera. The other half of our footage was filmed on another, digital camcorder (SANYO Xacti 12MP Waterproof Digital Camcorder). This second camera helped contrast the two different styles of film as they were cut between in editing constantly. The second camera looked a little off key, seeing Kelly the soon to be victim from a Dutch angle – the camerawork was amateurish and very shaky, heightening the realism of the character Krissy filming them all like in a video diary and the ominous blue offsetting a dark tone, overall contrasting it highly to the better quality footage from the tape. This challenges the conventional use of one type of camera for filming, developing it so as to use both types of camera’s qualities as strengths and playing up against each other.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to engage with our audiences by linking to narrative theory. Horror movies often use concealed identity as a part of Barthes’ enigma code to keep the audience guessing until the end who the killer could be. Concealed identity as a part of Barthes’ enigma code is used in The Steps to keep the audience interested in the film so they’ll get answers to their question – just who exactly is targeting these girls? Why? What just cut Kelly? Who is going to be next to get hurt?

Todorov: The girls began in a state of equilibrium, normally just having a camping trip all together in the woods. This is disrupted by Kelly getting cut, then the first death and the bloody game which they are all forced to play. They’re all camping more or less peacefully, when something or someone starts killing them off when they fail the steps of a dangerous game. The killer is dealt with in a fight to the death, and everyone who has survived is now safe and able to go back to life as best as they can.

Strauss: the innocent peaceful schoolgirls versus the depraved vengeful killer, the vulnerable young women versus the strong and predatory murderer – we see whether the innocent shall manage to persevere and win out over the evil of Johnny Angel, or whether his game will defeat them showing and vice is stronger.


The soundtrack was all instrumental music and so although none of the tracks used were popular songs that would be recognized by the audience, the style of the music was very typical of horror film score and therefore its familiarity helped to build up the audience’s expectations that something was about to go terribly wrong, and helped in getting across that meaning to the viewer.

The costume was typical of the age group of the characters which was also close to the age of the target audience, striking a chord in them as they recognize the kind of clothes that they and their peers wear: skinny jeans, boots, wellingtons, denim jackets, pea coats, leggings with blazers. The costumes in this way also helped the audience to understand what each character was like as they could guess that by looking at what they were wearing, as the costumes were suited to each particular character.

Shy Anna hid in her hair, headphones, and pea coat where the more flamboyant Kelly showed she wasn’t afraid to be noticed in a colourful blazer and form fitting tank top and leggings.

The scenario choice was a mixture of keeping true to the story as well as pulling into traditional fairytale and folklore; the set up is well known, a lonely girl in the middle of the woods who’s in danger. Since Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel & Gretel, the woods have always held a sense of danger especially for the young so the setting would play on a common childhood fear of the woods and what could be in them which is often developed in children from an early age.

Isolation is a common theme in horror films and often one of the reasons why people become victims – they are cut off from other people, which also cuts them off from help. Being in the woods you may not necessarily get a good signal on a mobile phone so it’s not so easy as to just call an ambulance or the police when you’re in the middle of them – there is an obvious lack of technological devices so it’s harder to get a hold of anybody to help. Nowadays, people fear even their phone dying without any battery let alone being without any technology at all. The stark natural setting highlights their complete cut off from anybody else, and any help that they could have gotten.

We used different camera angles to further engage with our audience. For example, in The Steps a long shot from a low angle is taken with foliage obscuring the viewfinder as the killer watches the group from a hidden point. None of them look in the camera’s direction and are all completely unaware that they are being watched – in addition to this, the foliage is covering them, creeping and looming over them almost as if it is entrapping them just as the killer is preparing to do.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for The Steps would be teenagers and young adults – a target group of approximately 15 to 24 year olds. Research shows that they go to the cinema the most out of the population, with 40% of 15 to 24 year olds year olds going to the cinema at least once a month and 25% of them making up the audience of all top 20 films within the UK in 2009. This age group also have a lot more disposable income than other age groups, as they usually have money from student loans and jobs without the responsibility of looking after and paying for the expenses of mortgages and having children. The majority of this age group being students, this also means that as they aren’t necessarily working they have a lot of free time to spend on going to the cinema and paying to watch films there.

This age group also make a very commercial target group as they can be easily pleased provided you follow a popular film formula. This can best be seen with the success of romcoms e.g. 10 Things I Hate About You, Bridget Jones's Diary or simple romance films e.g. the Nicholas Sparks novel to film adaptations such as Letters to Juliet and Dear John.

An example of a common film formula for romantic films would be: ‘boy meets girl; they fall in love; there is an obstacle to their love making them both miserable and breaking them up; boy does something amazing to help them get past it/the run for love – they live happily ever after’. The ‘run for love’ phenomenon is something which can be seen in many films e.g. Wicker Park, Bridget Jones's Diary, What Happens In Vegas etc.

Source (click to read more about cinematic formulas) @ http://www.bmoviecentral.com/bmc/bmc-articles/142-cinematic-formulas.html