Auditions

Yesterday we held the audtions to cast the positions in our opening. We set up three camera's, this is so we could do a mock up of the shot reverse shot we plan to do in our final piece. We audtioned 4 people and gave them several takes to do, each time asking them to act slightly differently. This way we could see which way had more impact. I think when we ask them to both be really agressive it worked very well.
We then got together as a group and decided who we would like to use.

I think the audtion process went very well and we worked well to make the best decisions we could.

Animatic Storyboard Final

This is the final copy our animatic storyboard, it is narrated by me and one other member of the group. We improvised what we said and just explained what was happening in each shot.

Script Writing

We had a deadline to complete the final copy of the script for our opening. We sat down as a group and discussed which characters we would need and what they would say, if anything. We then wrote down a brief copy of the script on paper. As seen below:























I then went away with another member of the group, Lauren, and we worked on an intermediate copy of the script. We started to word process it and put it into more of the format of a script. We then printed out what we had done, and got it checked by several people to check for spelling mistakes and improvments that could be made. Here is the intermediate copy:
























After correcting these mistakes, and making any improvments that were suggested, we could then complete the final copy of the script. This is it:

Final Script

Similar Media Works Presentation

For the siminlar media works presentation we divided the group up and we each completed a list of slides for the final presentation. I done slides on the following:
Target audience
Typical Mise en-Scene
Mise en-Scene of one horror film

Here are my slides.

For the research of this project, I looked on several websites such as IMBD and wikipedia. I also watched a selection of horror film clips to compare mise-en scene.

You can see the full Similar Media Works presentation on our group blog here :
http://cvhs-jall.blogspot.com/

Similar Media Works Presentation Research

As a group we decided that we would split the presentation into sections, and then we could individualy research and present those sections. I have done some research on target audeince of horror films and I wrote the following for the presentation:

Usually the target audience for mainstream horror is people aged 16 – 24. This is mainly due to the fact the most horror films are certificate 15 or 18. They are certified this way because the content of these films often contain explicit content and scenes that could disturb younger viewers. Another reason for this targeted age group is that film production companies will often advertise using adverts in teen magazines and music channels, which are also aimed at people of ages between 16 – 24. More related to psychological thrillers, the age range of audience would tend to be slightly older. This is because the plot and story lines are often a lot more intricate and complicated, and therefore require more knowledge and concentration.

With concern to gender, horror films are stereotyped to be aimed at men, this is because of the idea that men will feel more manly after watching a horror film. However, more recently the audience has spread more out to females as well. This shows both men and women both enjoy watching horror films for the adrenaline rush that comes with watching one.

The Shining Hallway Scene Re-make

As a group we filmed the shots necessary to complete our horror film remake. As I did not get a chance to contribute to the final edit, I created my own which is the video seen above. I think this will help me greatly when it comes to creating our final project as it is horror, like the final piece will be. Making this allowed me to use the different conventions for horror films and get a feel for how to edit them to meet the expected standards. This included things such as, filming at angles expected in horror films and using appropriate transitions.

Creating this re make will help me greatly when it comes to creating our final product as it has let me get a good feel of how to edit a film to give the typical horror conventions. It has allowed me to get good practice with using the equipment and editing software which will all contribute towards the final piece.

Research into Setting etc.

I done some research into the setting of our project. I went on to the internet to search for relevant images that could help us with setting our film.

First of all I looked at pictures of an empty swing and found the following:



I chose this image as it shows the swing still in motion, I thought this was good as it would make it look like the action was all of a sudden and unexpected. I think making a clip similar to this for our project would work well as the idea would fit.

I also liked the lighting in this image, as it is quite dull, there are no real bright colours as such. This would also work well for our project as we will be trying to make it look eerie and suspicious.

I then found this image. I selected it because I think it shows a similar surrounding to what we will try to acheive in the filming of our project.

It shows a swing set in a forest surrounding, it is very desolate and isolated from anything else. This will help to show the character is helpless if we used a scene like this.

The lighting in the clip is very light and sunny, as we want our scene to look quite suspicious we could film in the evening to solve this problem.



I thought if I looked at pictures of nurses and doctors, it would help us to choose the cast more appropriatly. By this I mean we can see what a typical nurse and a typical looks like.


It can also help us to choose relevant costumes for our cast, so it looks as authentic as possible.




I found these two pictures which show a letter with the 'CONFIDENTIAL' stamp and a 'PRIVATE' stamp. I looked at these images as in our film we will show documents with some kind of private or confidential stamp on them. Looking at these images will help to find the most effective way of showinig that the documents are confidentail.

Progress

Today the group had a meeting were the other three members of the group went off to take pictures for the final copy of the story board. While they were doing this I worked on my own copy of The Shinning re-make scene. I worked on my own copy as I was not able to be involved in the editing on the original. I believe this could help the group though because we can compare the two remakes and use the comparisons for our final product. For example we can see which transitions work best. I completed most of the editing but there is still a little to do, I will continue to work on this as time progresses.

I also done some research for the similar media works presentation. I looked into target audience of horror films and thriller films. This will be greatly helpful to the presentation as what I found out clearly explains the typical target audiences.

Mise-En Scene: The Shining 1980

To begin with the diagetic sound is very quiet, the only extra diagetic sound that can be heard is music /sound outside of the scene. The sound of music is very high pitched which creates tension for the audience. You can hear the surroundings but there is not much noise happening. This makes a bigger impact when the character Jonny starts to talk. It makes his voice sound very clear and could be seen as threatening. The next thing we hear after the character speaking is the axe going through the door, followed by a scream. The sound of the axe hitting the wood is very loud, which gives it a lot of impact as it could make the audience jump or feel fear. The scream is very sudden and high pitched, showing utter fear which shows the audience the emotion and feelings of the woman. As the screams are sudden and continuous, it puts the viewer on edge. At the point of the speech ‘Here’s Jonny’ the music becomes louder as it crescendo’s and also becomes higher in pitch, the lets the audience know something is about to happen. The way the words ‘Here’s Jonny’ are spoken in such a way which adds more fear, as he sounds very confident, like he does not care what he is doing. The screams become louder and more desperate, and as she cuts Jonny’s hand his shriek shows his pain.

The costume of the character Jonny consists of a red coat and the rest of his clothing is all very dark, this connotes a few things including: death, blood, danger, warning, darkness etc. This could show the audience that someone is about to be killed, or bleed, or be in danger, along with him being a bad person. Jonny is also very under groomed, showing that he does not take any care in his appearance and making him look rough, like he is not phased by doing anything which he should not do. It also shows that he is probably the one who is going to inflict one of these things. The woman is wearing very bland and plain clothing which could symbolise her simplicity, and that she is helpless and innocent. This is also shown in the colour of the walls of the bathroom which the woman is in, they are bright white, which symbolises innocence and purity, making the audience know that the victim is not deserving of what is about to happen. Along with the woman’s make up, it is very natural, which makes her look younger, again showing innocence.

The lighting in the room is coming from lights, a lamp in the bedroom, and ceiling lights in the bathroom, it is not coming from outside of the set so it looks very natural. The room in which Jonny is in contains a lot of dark and heavy shadows, it makes the room appear more eerie, creating suspense and making the audience think that something bad is about to happen. The room in which the woman is, is very brightly lit, which could symbolise heaven, showing she is a good and innocent person. It again, also symbolises innocence. The bathroom also looks very sterile and clean, almost like a hospital room, and the fact that it is so clean looking will make the impact of her being murdered (if she is murdered) even stronger, as the colour of the blood would stand out a lot on the bright white walls and floor.

There is a big contrast in the lighting of the two rooms, as the bedroom looks very warm and calm, whereas the bathroom looks cold and uninviting. This is to show the bathroom as the place where something bad will happen, and by setting up this contrast, the audience can get an idea of what is going to happen in this situation before it happens.

The camera angle to begin with is a mid shot to close up. This clearly shows Jonny’s face and his expression, it is used so the audience can see his confidence in what he is about to do. When the woman picks up the knife, there is a mid shot of her holding it, the camera angle is high which makes her look small, showing her to be little and scared. The camera shakes as she picks up the knife, maybe to show how nervous and uncomfortable she is in this situation. There is a close up of the axe coming through the door which also adds to the fear for the woman and for the viewer, as the seriousness of the situation is realisable. As well as a close up of the axe, again, the camera also shakes as it hits the door, this shows the real impact of the door being broken. As the woman screams a mid shot/close up is used to show her expression, and her desperation. This really helps the viewer to see what she is feeling, as her facial expression is very clear, and you can see all her movement. The use of a mid shot on her also shows that she is trying to huddle up to herself, the shot is used so the viewer can see both her expression and body language. There is a low angle shot of Jonny as he has almost broken through the door, this shows him to be powerful, bigger and taller than the woman, adding more fear. A close up is then used to show Jonny’s hand being cut, this allows the audience to see the blood, informing them that he is actually cut.

Peliminary Task Evaluation

Over all our film worked well. However, the continuity was not of a very good quality. Some parts of our film did not flow very well, objects filmed in one scene did not appear in another. For example, during the establishing shot we had a table full of people, and then when the film goes to the next scene the people sitting at the table are gone. Also there is a point were one of the actors is in a shot which they shouldn’t be, and in the next shot they have moved. Other than these mistakes the continuity shown in our film is good.

I think we demonstrated very good shot reverse shot in our film. This is shown in the conversation section, where as one actor is talking the camera is on them, and when the other actor makes a response, the camera shot goes to them. We did this by setting up two cameras and editing the clips.

Our group worked very well together during the filming of the video, everyone took part and we shared turns of doing the actual filming. As it took several takes everyone in the group got at least one. However I think the work done during the editing stage could have been shared more efficiently.

If we were to re make or do this piece again, we would ensure that continuity was a lot better, so that the film ran more smoothly. Also, we could improve on the mise en scene, by having better props, and a better setting for the filming.

I think our film was planned very well, before we started we had a script, which we produced a storyboard from. Whilst doing the filming we stuck to the ideas on the story boards we created.

The transitions we used in our film worked very well, we used them to move between clips, but only the clips which had a change of scene. For example between the establishing shot and then the door scene. We did not use transitions during the conversation shot reverse shot as we thought it worked well as it was.

From doing this exercise I learnt the basics of suing the editing program, I had never used it before so I learnt quite a lot. It was complicated but not too hard to pick up, there are still things to learn about but things that were not required to make this film.

Pelimnary Task

Time planning and Initial Story Board

Yesterday on the 10th of November the group got together to discuss our time management and the tasks which needed to be done, to make this easier for the whole group we decided to make a Gantt chart and check list.

I started on the Gantt chart by assigning every one a different colour so the different tasks could be coloured coded and easily refered to. I done this with the help of another member of the group, Jenny. The tasks which we have done all got marked off on the chart so we knew where we were up to.

Today we had another meeting were I continued with the story board, I completed eight sections of it which roughly show what will happen. This will not be our final story board as it is still initial ideas, and the drawings are not as clear as they could be. When it comes to making the final copy of the story board I will input and try to make our intentions as clear as possible.

I helped contribute towards naming our film and I came with the suggestion of 'The Asylum'. Other suggestions include 'The Mentalist' and 'The Institution'. The final name has not yet been decided so this is something to think about.

Overall, I think our group is working really well together and everyone is making very good suggestions. I think our project will be go well and we will all stay on task.

Initial Ideas

I had to start to think about any initial idea's that I had today as our group had a meeting to mind map all our idea's and thoughts. I had a lot of idea's but it was hard to sum them up as they weren't yet clear. I liked the idea of a psychological thriller and so as a group we worked on this.

Once I had got my personal idea's together, I could tell the group of a possible plot for our project. This included a protagonist and an antagonist, there would be some conflict between the two but the audience would not yet know why. The antagonist plots to murder the protagonist, by switching the antagonists pills to something containing poison. As an audience we would not see the murder as such, but it would be more in the mind of the viewer.

The group liked this idea of not directly knowing that the murder had happened, so parts of the story would be missed out, as it is only the opening of a film, and the missing parts would be revealed later in the film. For example, we do not see the antagonist's face/expression etc. just there actions. The whole story would not yet be known.

As a group we built on this idea and came up with a narrative for our opening, I then started on a rough copy for a story board. We will continue to develop our ideas until we are satisfied with them.

Mise En Scene – Opening of Scream 2 (1997)

Mise En Scene – Opening of Scream 2 (1997)

The opening of this film begins with extra diegetic music fading in, the music becomes very loud and it is quite heavy, this style of music could make the audience feel excited and much like something drastic is going to happen. The first shot we see is an establishing shot, it shows a cinema with people queuing outside, this is to give the viewer an idea of the setting, it also shows the viewer that it is night time so it is dark outside, which is a strong convention of a horror film, as bad things are thought of happening in the dark. It also adds an eerie effect to the scene.

The next shot tracks along the queue of people, in a mid shot. The camera then stops when it reaches a couple and some dialogue starts. The audience gets the idea that this couple will be the protagonists in the film, this is because they are both young and possibly in love, there age shows vulnerability. As they are talking the camera moves to another shot, where it shows a robotic arm in the cinema moving a knife up and down, this could be seen as symbolising the death to come.

There is a close up of the female characters face, this shows that she is relaxed by her facial expression, as she has no reason to be scared yet. The conversation between the two is very relaxed and it seems as if neither of them know what is to come.

As they enter the cinema there is a poster on the wall behind them, it shows the couple in a mid shot and the poster as an over the shoulder shot. The poster shows the scream mask which gives the audience an idea that the masked killer will return. As the two enter the cinema screen there are lots of people surrounding them wearing the scream masks which to the audience connotes danger, to the characters however it does not connote danger as they think people are just wearing because of the film they are seeing. As the camera moves around to be facing the couple, another character runs through between them wearing a mask shouting “Kill kill kill!” which also connotes danger and death.

The lighting in the cinema screen scene is very dark, there is almost no light. This shows an even more eerie setting as it is like the characters do not know what is around the corner. Someone could creep up on them and at this point they would not know.

The camera then pans across the seating in the cinema, showing all the audience of the film, the majority are wearing the scream masks. The camera becomes slightly jolted as it pans past a knife held vertically as if it is about to stab someone. This is because it draws attention to the viewer. The screen then goes completely black and momentarily the film they are watching in the cinema begins. The viewer can see the film they are watching. What they can see is the outside of house, there is a swimming pool with mist rising from it. This shows that it is cold out and also very dark. This adds a sense of fear. The camera then moves on to a character who is young, female and blonde. She is wearing very little make up which connotes her as looking and being very young and vulnerable. She is wearing all white and the room is white and very brightly lit. This makes the audience of both the film and the characters in the cinema see her as very innocent, even like an angel, or the room she is in could be seen as heavenly, maybe as she is about to get murdered. There is then a storm starting, another convention of horror, the sense of a storm ads fear. He girl on the screen looks around and we can see from a mid shot that she looks very shocked and scared. The camera shot the goes to a close up of the female from the couple watching the film and her facial expression is very clear. She winces and it make the audience feel she is uncomfortable watching this film.

As the character dressed in all white on the screen turns on the shower, all that can be heard is the shower water falling the floor. Then there is a sudden clap of thunder, this makes the scene more edgy and jumpy as it may not have been expected.

The male of the couple looks very comfortable, this shows he is there to try and protect the female, his character is the strong, un-fearful male. This could show to the audience that he is going to try and fight for survival. The shot then goes back to the female looking even more uncomfortable, which could make the audience see that the bad events are getting closer.

Next, the scene on the screen shows the girl looking more and more scared, there is then a flash of someone wearing the mask and holding a knife, or, the killer in this sense. This audience in the cinema all scream. This makes the female feel even more frightened and edgy. She looks very vulnerable and the clothes she is wearing could suggest danger. This is because she is wearing a very deep red top, which could symbolise many things such as blood, death and danger. It could also show to the audience that she will be the victim as it is almost spotlighting her as the one covered in ‘blood’. She also is very under-made, in that she is wearing little make up. As the girl on the screen is. This can show to the audience that like the girl on the screen she is a very vulnerable victim.