Production company research

Rogue are a entertainment production company set up in 1997 owned by relativity media. The company has recently made two supernatural horrors: my soul to take (2010) and the unborn (2009)
My soul to tkae was unsuccessful at the box office, and was poorly received by critics. 
The unborn  was released to an overwhelming negative reviews.Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 11% based on 114 reviews, with the site's consensus stating: "David Goyer's Unborn is a tame genre effort with cheap thrills and scares that border on silliness." Meta-critic gave the film a 30 out of 100, based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating generally unfavorable reviews . We therefore decided that this production company may contribute ideas that would be detrimental to our film and they have not produced a supernatural horror which has done well in the box office recently. 

Blumhouse Productions

As Blumhouse is a top production company which mainly specialises in horror films, we decided to do some research into how suitable it would be for our own opening.

Brief Background

• Best known for their micro and low budget films
• Recent productions include

- The Paranormal Activity sequences

- Sinister

- The Purge

- Insidious

The animation for Blumhouse is effective, especially when put in the title sequence of a horror film due to it's low key lighting and ominous atmosphere. As well as this, there is also a supernatural element as we see a ghost figure of what seems to be a young girl, which is in addition to the shadow effect (where the actual 'Blumhouse' name is revealed), therefore this suggests that Blumhouse would be a suitable production company for our genre. This is further suggested through the non-diegetic sounds of the flickering lights, a common convention in horror films as it further emphasises the idea of poor lighting and darkness.

Production Company Improvement

An improvement that I had to make from my first attempt at my production company clip for our film opening is to make the match and flame more in the centre. At first my solution was to re-do everything, from filming to editing. However, after looking more at the original production company clip, I found a way to manipulate it to achieve this improvement. 

This was done on iMovie as this is where the original footage is, and it is also easy software to use for manipulation and editing. I found that by cropping the frame, I was able to make the match and flame much more central. This makes the clip look more professional as the match is not the focal point in the centre of the frame, instead of being too far over to the left.

The audio effects were left the same as the build up and blowing sound was effective and hugely adds to the clip. Also the fade out to black transition at the end was kept the same as it gives a clean, clear finish. The aim was to keep it clearly linked with our chosen genre, however for it to also look creative and professional.

It was tricky to get the two separate parts of the clip to be in the same central position of the frame. However I overcame this by measuring the space from the 'X' in the centre of the box, to get them accurately in the middle. The frame around was left black as it allows focus to fall on the flame in the centre.

This is the final result-

Own Production Companies Task

The initial idea I had for our production company was to create something that involved the darkness and shadows, as these are two main conventions within the supernatural horror genre. I came up with the idea of a match being lit in the darkness to look something like this:

BlackoutProductions

After the production title has appeared, the audience will hear a quick blow sound, which will lead to the match being blown out, and the text disappearing as does the flame.

I filmed a match in front of the dark blanket on the chair. This is because if I had done it in complete darkness then the match would not be as clear to the audience, so I used a dark background instead. I dimmed the lighting in the kitchen slightly so the purpler of the blanket was not too vivid on camera.

I imported my video onto iMovie so it could be edited and manipulated into a production company sequence to be incorporated into our film opening. I felt that it should be clear, yet have some links to our supernatural horror genre.

After importing the video, I then split the clip to enable me to delete the parts that I did not want and allowed me to put them into any order I wanted, and then selected join clips to put them back as one long sequence again.

I chose the 'Fade to Black' transition as this was the most appropriate due to the content and the genre that I was trying to include elements of with the chosen visual and audio effects.

I then inserted the text that would have our production company name- 'Blackout Productions.' I chose for it to be in the top left-hand corner as it allows attention to be paid to the rest of the sequence. The font is in capital letters, and a professional font with perfectly formed letters. This subverts the genre I was trying to link to slightly as the typography within supernatural horror is traditionally sharp and classic gothic style.

I changed the font colour to grey so the text did not contrast too harshly against the dark background (it was originally white.) 

I used the website 'Free SFX' to allow me to have access to a wider range of sound and music effects. Although iMovie is good for basic editing, there is not a wide range of sound, and none of the already existing could serve the purpose that I needed it for. The effects were easy to download and saved directly to my iTunes. 

Next I layered the sounds so that the music continues as the blowing sound could be heard. I also edited the text to come in later so that the audiences focus was immediately drawn.

Finally, I shared the finished clip to Youtube as this would allow me to easily embed it onto the blog.

Here is the final clip.

I am pleased that:

• I was able to create something professional looking and that included links to our chosen genre.

To improve:

• I could have played around with lighting and setting more so that the smoke would have shown up more clearly.

Production Company Research 2

Production Company Research 2

For our film opening we want to include a large, already exsisting production company to make our opening more professional.  I have taken some examples from my last production research post to help decide whihc company would be most appropriate for our opening.




I feel that the most appropriate production comapny logo for our film opening would be Blumhouse Productions because the company is dedicated to producing horror films so it would be most genre specific for our opening.  I also really like the colours used in the logo and it is quite dreamlike which ties in with the supernatural side of horror.  My second favourite is Lionsgate as the colours and cogs are quite dark and mysterious which could possibly be used for a supernatural horror.  The least appropriate is Paramount as it is uncommonly used in supernatural horror and is too happy and bright for our genre.

I also wanted to deconstruct and critic some exsisting school made production companies to give us an idea of some good and bad things to use when making our own. 


The first video uses "Warner Sisters" which is a referance to the already exsisting Warner Brothers.  This takes away from the professional aspects of the opening and does not make it look realistic.  The colour scheme is quite boring and the typography looks amateur.  I like the way it fades out in a bright light as it is mysterious and could possibly be used in supernatural horror.


I really like the home made production company in this film as the use of the eye is very effective.  I like how it is an actual filmed piece as it looks more professional and the still at the end is edited well and is individual
from other companies.





I really like this group's production company as it looks professional but still different.  It is only a still frame but some editing has been used which makes it interesting.  I do not think it would be appropriate for our genre in specific but maybe for a comedy or rom-com.

Production Company research

BlumHouse Productions produces high-quality, micro-budget films, Paranormal activity was made for only $15,000 then released by Paramount Pictures and grossed $200 million. Their other films include Insidious and Sinister.  As they are a low budget company we can take inspiration from their techniques.  Their three main films all have supernatural horror in common, but they are also filmed in similar locations, everyday normal places e.g. family home. 

 Paramount Pictures is a very large production company who create every type of film, usually on a big budget.  They have been partnered with BlumHouse productions many times, this is quite common that a smaller and a larger production company team up together.                                                                                                                                    

Warner Bros is a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment company and a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of entertainment and their related businesses.  Warner Bros are another of the very large companies who operate on big budgets, examples of their recent supernatural horrors are The Conjuring and The Orphan.

Dark Castle is a production company focused on the making of horror films, particularly supernatural.  The most famous of their films would be the Orphan.  As this company is mainly supernatural horror, this could be an option that we could use in our opening.

Lionsgate is another huge production company who make a variety of films from all different genres.  They were one of the production companies working on The Last Exorcism and as we are using elements of exorcisms in our film opening they might be an appropriate company to use.