En Fin

It has been the last week before the deadline tomorrow and everything has gone really smoothly, no lost footage or bad footage and the editing has gone well (thanks to Joseph's amazing computer skills) and the film is now better that I expected.

 Is it too good to be true?

Storyboard of the new shots

We decided instead of having a room in disarray we would just focus on the computer we would have shots panning across the keyboard and screen and have a phone call in the backgound either to the police or to a friend.

So that we have more time to edit Joe is going to film a variety of shots tonight and we will all edit them next week.

More Planning!

We decided to keep our new section of the opening closer to the genre and use it to create more suspense rather than take it away so we thought and thought and thought, we came up with idea after idea after idea but each one had a problem whether it would mean getting rid of the first section that we liked so much, or we didn't have enough time to film it and edit it as there was only a week until our deadline. EVENTUALLY we decided to go with an idea that wouldn't take long to film but we were worried that it wouldn't be long enough or it wouldn't turn out as good as we desperately wanted it to.
The idea was a ransom email with a picture of the captive, there would then be shots of an empty room in disarray and we would have a phone call over head. *fingers crossed that it will all be ok* 

The Questionnaire

We asked the people to rate the following questions out of 5 (1 being very bad 5 being excellent) and then to give any constructive critisism at the end.                                                                                          These were the average scores

1. Did the opening appeal to you?                                      4
2. Did the black and white create suspense?                     4
3. Was the monologue clear?                                             4
4. Did the monologue create suspense?                            4
5. How successful was the montage?                                1
6. How successful was the cutting and walking shot?        2
7. How was the positioning of the credits?                         2
8. How effective was the sound?                                       1
9. Did the ending make sense?                                          1
10. What is your general rating of the opening?                   2  

What was good about our film?

Beginning is really good, Beginning is better than the second part

Kettle noise is good

Good title positioning

Good cutting effect when walking up the street

What needs to be improved?

Tension is spoiled when it starts the montage

Montage music is too upbeat and happy, sounds like a 'children's nursery rhyme type song'

The second bit just doesn't fit

From our feedback we realised that the different sections were too contrasting and made it confusing so we decided to refilm the second part with a new idea.

Our First Draft!

This is the link to our first draft :O .................................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2IMEZRGaq0

..............................................let me know what you think!

We will have a group of people who are in our target audience who will answer our questionaire and give some feed-back

Oh Dear!!!!!

The group have decided who should act in the film!     ME!!!!!! :(
Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Timeline for Opening Sequence

Here is a timeline which we made during the planning process. We made a timeline so that we would have a better idea of how long shots should be.

Storyboard for Opening Sequence

PLANNING!

Opening Sequence of a Film Plan

Genre: Thriller

Narrative:
 A girl is tied up in a chair in a dark room
Then we hear a narrator speaking over the scene
We hear a kettle boiling and it cuts to a brakfast scene
The same girl is getting reaady to leave the house she then walks down the street, buys a newspaper and waits at a bus stop 
(the audience do not know whether this is her life before the kidnapping or her recovering from the kidnapping)

Script:   Narrator, “I always wanted to be a hero. Ever since I was little. Not a super hero like Wonder woman or Cat woman, though there clothes are pretty cool. But someone that mattered, someone who had made a difference and left their mark in history. What I didn’t realise then was...........................................I would need a hero.”   

Roles of Group:     
Adam Bennett = Sound      
Jessica Palmer = Camera Shots                              
Laura Shackleton = Mise en Scene               
Joseph Elton = Editing       

Shooting Schedule: 
Tuesday 21^st February – Recording the monologue (double lesson)  
Saturday 25^th February – Filming all shots (all day)  
Monday 27^th February-Friday 2^nd March – Editing (lessons, frees, lunch and after school)

Risk Assessment:  
1. Dark room, be careful when moving around.                                                            
2. Moving in and out of buildings be careful of steps.        
3. Kitchen, be careful when using electrical appliances and boiling water, keep the camera away from water.  
4. Outside, be careful of vehicles when crossing the road, be prepared for weather-don’t get the camera wet, if icy or wet be careful of slippy surfaces.  
5. High powered light, be wary of hot bulb.

Ideas

After researching the thriller genre we created a few ideas:

Idea 1. A crime thriller for the opening we could possibly have a body being found or somebody being killed. We decided to all develop ideas and think about the kind of style we could do ready for our next meeting and during that time I watched an episode of Whitechapel and liked the effect of the flashes between different time periods and the sadistic feel of the episodes and after showing the rest of the group we thought that we could do something similar.

Idea 2. A Kidanapping, we could have someone tied up in a chair and then flash to why the person was kidnapped or the opening of the film could be watching the person being kidnapped.

Idea 3. The opening could show a 999 phone call.
We looked in to typical emergency phone calls but found that all the calls on youtube were hoax calls so we
found some examples in different films and television dramas. We found from this research that the calls have a typical script setting in thrillers the caller is very panicked and the emergency services representative is calm and asks qestions such as 'what is your emergency?' where are yoou know?' 'did you see what happened?' is there anybody near you know?'                       

Our Final Idea:
After discussing what we could do with each idea we chose to develop idea 1 and our storyline would be a woman walking through the woods and flashes between her walking and her being dead, however after hearing from our teacher that films in woods were very common we thought that we tried to come up with something different we then chose to develop idea 2 and incoporate the Whitechapel effect in with it.                                                                                           

A Thriller Quote

"Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, police thriller........ . The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre's most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job."                                 -James Patterson

Theories

Proppian Character Theory
This is a theory that indicates 6 main characters types which feature in most tales and films, which include,
-The Hero
-The Villain
-The Damsel in Distress
-The Donor/Dispatcher (who gives the Hero an important object /or sendsthe hero on a quest)
-The Side-kick (who helps the Hero)
-The False Hero (who gives false information and interupts the quest)

Todorov's Narrative Theory
This is a theory that shows the typical narrative stucture to films.
1.Equilibrium-a state of normality for the main characters
2.Action that causes disruption
3.Recognition of the disruption
4.An Attempt to repair the disruption
5.Equilibrium-either original or a new kind of equilibrium with many changes.

It is important to understand these theories and choose whether to adhere to them in our film or whether to do something different.

Thriller Research

Our film will be a Thriller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   
Dictionary defintion:   A novel, play, or movie with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage.

We have looked at more film openings to see what fit the general conventions of the thriller genre.

Common themes that we found in thrillers are investigations, mind games, obsession, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings, false accusations and gadgets.

The primary elements of the thriller genre:

• The main protagonist faces death (may not necessarily be their death).
• The villain must initially be clever or stronger than the protagonist.
• The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved or a quest.
• The film's narrative construction is mainly the protagonist's point of view.
• The two major themes that underpin the thriller genre is justice prevails and the morality of individuals.
• One significant aspect of a thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.
• The protagonist and antagonist may battle not just on a physical level, but on a mental one as well.
• Characters are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared for.
• Other elements include political conspiracy, romantic triangles, terrorism and more.

We also compiled a list of things that we should think about during planning:
-The music and background sounds are very important at setting the mood of the film the wrong sound could make the film hard to follow, we should look for music that creates suspense, is fairly mysterious with a 'darker' tone as this seemed to be common ammong filmf of the genre.
-The editing is usually very fast with sharp cuts and fades seemed to be avoided.
- Lighting is most commonly low key with lots of shadows (some film noir qualities)
-In the films that we have seen there have been a large variety of shots but there are rarely 'third wall' shots as that is more appropriate for romantic comedies.

Our next task!

Our next task is the main task our specification is to make the titles and opening of a new fiction film which will last a maximum of 2 minutes, we must also show our research and planning processes.

Preliminary Task

This is the completed preliminary task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDOeJZRDY5k&feature=player_detailpage

During the editing process some of the shots from the storyboard were cut as we felt it was better without them instead we repeated some of the shots and with one shot (the girl looking to the door and back) we cut in half so that the girl would look to the door, there would then be the shot of the man walking, then it would go back to the woman looking towards the computer. We felt that this made more sense than the original shot of her looking towards the door and back to the screen and then the shot of the man walking.

If I could change anything about this clip it would be the music as I feel that it doesn't really fit the genre of the video, the present music would be better in a science fiction film rather than a film set in an office, I would have prefered something that was more fitting to the thriller genre something with a fast beat and music that created suspense.

Storyboard for Preliminary Task

Shot 1 : There is a mid/long shot of a man in a suit leaving the

 office set, the door closes behind him a girl is left alone. 

Shot 2: The camera pans across the room following a girl moving

around to another desk, music starts.

Shot 3: There is a close-up of the girl plugging in a USB pen in

to the computer.

Shot 4: The Girl opens a file on the computer (a close-up shot).

Shot 5: A close-up as the girl moves a mouse around, this shot 

may be repeated.

Shot 6:  A close-op of the screen as the woman transfers a file on

to her USB pen.

Shot 7: A mid-shot as the woman looks towards the door and back

to the computer as she hears footsteps.

Shot 8: There is a long shot of the man walking down a corridor.

Shot 9: A close-up of the girl removing the USB pen.

Shot 10: A long panning shot of the woman walking briskly

back to her desk.

Shot 11: A long shot of the door as the man enters the office.

Shot 12: There is a mid-shot of the man sitting down at his
 desk, he talks to the girl.

Shot 13:There is a mid-shot of the girl at her desk,

she replies to the man

Shot 14: Anothere mid-shot of the man as he asks

the woman is she has finished a report.

Shot 15: She replies saying she will go and hand it in

and there is a long shot of her leaving the room.

Shot 16: There is a mid-shot the woman walks across

the shot showing the USB pen in her hand.

  .

The Preliminary Task

After completing our practise task we then began our preliminary exercise. It will involve filming a character opening a door crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, they then exchange a few lines of dialogue we have to demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and 180-degree rule. We have been advised to film within the school so that we can complete the task quickly as we only have a week to finish the exercise.

Tuesday 24th Jan
Though the task seems fairly simple it was difficult to come up with an idea that could be done within the school but was also exciting to watch. After brainstorming a few ideas we decided to walk around the 6th form building to find some locations that would be good to use.
We developed 3 ideas:
1. A character would be stuck in the lift shouting and banging on the doors our second character would find and save him/her then both characters would sit down and talk about what happened.
2. One character would join the other character in the cafe and then continue to have a conversation.
3. It would be set in the 6th form office as one character leaves the other character steals information from his/her computer before the character then returns, sits down and they then exchange a few lines and the 'theif' leaves quickly.

We discovered that we couldn't use the lift because of health and safety reasons and there are too many people that are in the cafe all day so we decided to make the office scene. We talked to the heads of the 6th form too see whether it was ok to use the office they said it was ok aslong as we were supervised. This was good news we could then get on with our plan and hope to do the filming quickly after. We spent the rest of the lesson planning, deciding who would act, which props we would use and we completed our storyboard, this meant we could then film in the following lesson.

Thursday 26th Jan
During our lesson in the afternoon and a bit of time after school we completed the filming with a few 'small' disagreements between us.

Friday 27th Jan
Today was a DISASTER we went to lesson expecting to get on with our editing but our SD card with all our filming on was lost. A week of work was wasted!
We will have to refilm everything our teacher Mr Croft says that this is a good thing as it will stop us from making the mistake of not uploading it to the computer straight away the future when we've got all our film on it.

Monday 30th Jan
After a stressfull weekend I was expecting to do lot of work to catch up with to the other groups but hero Mr Croft found the SD card with all our filming on *sigh of relief* we were able to start the editing process with only a few lessons left to complete it. Joe went in at lunch to upload the films on to the editing programme and then placed the shots in order. In my study period I continued to edit the footage cutting off unwanted seconds and fitting the shots together.

Today I carried on with the editing. On whole the film looks ok but there is more precise editing that is needed an we need to decide on a soundtrack, this will have to be done next lesson (thursday) as we all have different study periods and are too busy at lunch times.

Thursday 2nd Feb
We had 30 mins in todays lesson to finish editing, as the clock ticked we were getting worried and didn,t think we would meet our deadline but we persevered and quickly chose a soundtrack and fit it to the clip, we then made the transitions between shots a bit smoother and added oour names and title to the video and VOILA! We just finshed as the time was up *another sigh of relief*.

We are Optimum Productions

Finally we decided on a company name that will be suitable for all future films

Optimum Productions

Practise Task

This is our first practise task completed :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=5JQeTcDKqn8

The clip shows a man walking around a building and then inside, he then bumps in to a 'friend' who asks him "where have you been?" which is answered by a solomn stare. We tried to follow conventions of the thriller genre, we saturated the colour so the shots were almost black and white to make it more sinister, we chose an eerie piece of music to add suspense to the clip, we also chose not to show his face until the last shot to intrigue the audience and to make it mysterious of the clip. The final shot is slowed down as the man removes his hood this was used to dramatise the moment.

It is an opening to a film so can you guess whats to come?

Storyboard for practice film!

My First Ever Blog Post!!!!!!

This blog will follow the progress of my Media Studies coursework over the coming months. My group have chosen to do the video coursework task which will consist of a preliminary exercise, a main task (the titles and opening of a fictional film) and evaluation of it.

We began the coursework 2 weeks ago where we examined previous material and learnt how to use the cameras and editing software. Our group was then set a practise task which had to include a match on action shot, shot reverse shot, no break in the 180-degree rule and the line 'where have you been?'.

This was my first experience at filming it was lots of fun to do and was also very fulfilling to see the completed piece of work, however it brought to light how much planning was needed to make the filming and editing process easier for example what every shot includes and the setting of the film.

I hope to upload our film soon watch this space.....