Shooting Schedule

                                                                      08.45am meet at lower car park

09.00am leave Hurtwood House

09.30am arrive at a house?

9.30am-9.45am set up for bedroom/bathroom shots

9.45am-10. 30am shoot bedroom/bathroom scenes

Storey board number: 4.6.7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17.18

10.30am-11.00am set up shots for going down the stairs/kitchen

11.00am-12.00pm shoot going down the stairs and kitchen scene

 

Storey board number: 19.20.21.22.23.24.25.26

12.00pm-12.30pm shoot walking down corridor/putting on coat

Storey board number: 27.28.29

12.30pm-1.00pm lunch break

1.00pm-1.30pm set up for getting into the car/pulling off the drive

1.30pm-2.00pm shoot getting into the car/pulling off the drive
 

Storey board number:30.31.32

2.00pm- 2.30pm/3.00pm relocate to Peaslake to shoot

3.00pm-3.30pm set up to shoot car pulling up/ shoot asylum

3.30pm-4.00pm shoot car pulling in /asylum
 

Storey board number: 33.34
 

4.00pm-4.30pm leave Peaslake, go to Lodge?

4.30pm- 5.00pm set up to film outside blurry shot/key part

5.00pm-5.30pm shoot outside part/ key part

Storey board  number: 1.2

5.30pm End shoot-pack up 

Narrative Action Of Our Thriller

Narrative action of Our Thriller

·      The detective stumbles home after a night of drinking at the local pub. He lives alone, single with no family.

·     We shoot him from behind as he struggles to open the front door of his house. He tries to put in the key in the door [we shoot a close –up of his hand and the key], eventually he does so.

·     He trembles through the house, struggles up the stairs [POV high angle] , goes into his room and collapses onto his bed. [black out]

·     Shot of the alarm going off, cuts to him waking up and reacting to the alarm; thinks about what happened last night in his face.

·     He gets out of bed, walks to the bathroom.

·     Enters the bathroom, [POV] of him turning on the tap, and washing his face.

·     He puts shaving foam on and shaves his face.

·     Gets dressed, put his tie on and ties it, buckles up his cufflinks and puts on a blazer.

·     Looks at himself in the mirror

·     Goes downstairs

·     Starts to cook breakfast

·     Frying bacon, cutting bread, kettle goes off, shot of knife cutting bread

·     Shot of him sitting at the dining table, reading a newspaper with a coffee.

·     Close up of the newspaper he is reading [O/S]

·     Looks at his wristwatch

·     Walks out the front door, whilst putting his coat on

·     Walks to his car and enters the car

·     Goes into the dashboard and gets out a bottle of alcohol and drinks it all

·     Pulls off the drive and the gates open

·     Arrives at the asylum.

Character Interpretations (Research)

Character interpretations from hurtwoodhousemedia5

Music ideas (Research)

For the beginning of our opening sequence, our character is drunk and the editing is going to be blurred out vision. So the music can't be happy it has to be an intense piece of music, which creates a sense of danger and uncertainty. 

For the beginning of the video, we researched music for the beginning where the actor comes into the house drunk, as though he has just arrived home, from a night out drinking; we want it to be very intense and mysterious.

This type of music would go really well, with an edited out blurred effect. 

 

Location (Research)

 

Luckily, we already have thought of a location for the asylum which is one of the school boarding houses. It is a scary, hospital looking building  and we feel it will definitely portray as an asylum.
We are unable to find a location for the detectives home (preferably an apartment), however, the school also own a small boarding home which has the right facilities and would be perfect to use as a small one bedroom apartment.
Detectives house: Turret(boarding house)
The asylum: Peaslake (boarding house)

Cast List

Cast list
 

• Adam
• Doug
• Jason
• Simon

All of these men we selected were in the correct age range we were looking for, each person are of an average males height. They also had the look we wanted to go for in our thriller, which is middle-aged and not much hair.

 

This is Adam Grant, our Media Studies teacher. He is going to be playing the role of our detective as he is the right age range (30-50) and is the appearance we were looking for. 

 

 

Props List

Props List

Props

• Alarm clock
• Knife
• Toothbrush
• Razor
• tie
• badge
• wristwatch
• food
• pan
• kettle
• newspaper
• car
• bathroom utilities 
• pills and container
• sandwich bag
• shaving foam
• bed
• kitchen table and chair

Character List

Character

Here I have a short list of what we want our character to look like for our thriller...

 

One Male character:

• 30-40years
• Tall
• Stubble?
• Well groomed
• Dark coloured hair

Altering thriller idea

BIG ALTERATIONS TO OUR THRILLER...

We focused mainly on our character, and wanted to change the way he acts, instead of having a normal routine which we thought was quite boring and we wanted the character to be an alcoholic instead of focusing on OCD. 

We decided to add more to the beginning of our opening sequence-before our character wakes up in the morning, we would have him stumble into his house and back into his bed drunk. We want our character to have an immaculate house, but we wanted him to start off by walking in, struggling to open the door drunk, a point of view shot of him walking up the stairs, continuing into his room, flops onto the bed and blackout. The edit being a blurred out/ out of focus effect. Then, to continue with the idea of the morning routine but he would be perfectly fine in the morning- like he's changed to someone else.

Who is Kyle Cooper?

 

Kyle Cooper (Born July 1962) is a modern designer of motion picture title sequences. The graphic designer himself has directed over 150 film title sequences. He is the founder of two internationally recognised film design companies, Imaginary Forces and Prologue Films. 

Some of his main films, Se7en, Braveheart, Spider Man and Iron Man.

Production Meeting Two

Production Meeting Two 

 

In the second meeting we had together, our aim was to complete a much more detailed storyboard as the first one was a simple outline of the story. In this production meeting we had to work out roughly the timing off each shot, whether we wanted lighting or not, and to decide if we wanted music in each different shot. This took a much longer time than the first storyboard and was much more challenging but we worked together well and got it done.

Production Meeting One

Production Meeting One

Discussing Ideas...
First we listened to each others thriller ideas; between us we decided that we wanted to use two thrillers combined:

First Idea

 

its starts off with a man who suffers with OCD (obsessive compulsive

disorders). We wanted to show this man's structured routine

and how everything is portrayed immaculate and in

an order. We wanted to include a twist to

this thriller where this man would be

a killer who kills beautiful

women, who are

all very the

same.

 

Second Idea

  

to

begin

there would

be an inspector who

comes to a mental health

asylum, to investigate a mysterious

death. The inspector look at an outline of

a body on the floor, he speaks to someone and

looks back and the body has gone and then a black out. 

 



Our group idea sharing worked with ease, we all agreed that we would interpret the two ideas as one.

 

Although, we were worried that the OCD idea would come across quite cliché, we are still very confident with this idea and we feel that we can film it very interestingly. The sequence will include something unique about OCD; which we are going to research.


 

In our first practical production meeting, we were starting our storyboards. A story board is when you put the story you are trying to portray down on a piece of paper by drawing a picture for each shot. We chose the best artist in the group to draw and the other two we're making final decisions. We went through this process very quickly and it made our thriller story even more realistic. 

 

Our finished Pilot Video

This our finished pilot video, which we filmed using a flip camera and we the put all the shots together on the software Movie Maker.
During the process of filming our pilot video, I thought it really helped us to know what our thriller was roughly going to look like, and whether we wanted to change anything or add anything in, it also gave us an idea of what shots we would have to consider and we also thought about what we would actually need to use on the day of the shoot.
As a group we worked very efficiently together and we planned out everything we were going to do before hand on our storyboard.

Our First storyboard



What is a storyboard? 

 

A storyboard is basically a series of drawn pictures that portray the order in which you want to film. It gives you a structured idea of the storyline, very similar to a comic strip, a visual way of planning each shot to be taken. 
 

1.                                               2. 

  

3.                                               4.

5.

What is a storyboard for?

A storyboard enables the film director to visualize the flow of the camera shots; it sets an outline of what is intended to appear on the cinema screen. Drawing a rough storyboard is the first step a director will take in visualising a script or a screenplay.

Once a storyboard is completed roughly, it is then used as the basis for discussions between the film director and director of photography.  It is not usually necessary to storyboard the whole film.



  

Connotation, Denotation and Semiology

• Connotation is using a name/ a label which our audience has used before we evoke a meaning for it

• Denotation is when you give a name to something with a particular meaning.

Some examples of Denotation and Connotation would be:

MICHAEL JACKSON - his name is a Denotation his name itself suggests who he is. 
Connotation: movie star, hollywood, death, fame, beauty, drugs... etc.

Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

'Don't Look Now' opening sequence analysis

In the lesson today, we studied an  opening sequence in 'Don't Look Now', we looked at what editing techniques were used and what the techniques portrayed.

In this short clip Nicolas Roeg used a lot of match cuts. 'Match cuts' were used to link what was happening outside So in today's lesson, we looked at another opening sequence and tried to identify what editing techniques were used in it and what was the meaning behind it. 

 

First Production Meeting for Thriller

Discussing Ideas...

First we listened to each others thriller ideas; between us we decided that we wanted to use two thrillers combined:

First Idea

 

its starts off with a man who suffers with OCD (obsessive compulsive

disorders). We wanted to show this man's structured routine

and how everything is portrayed immaculate and in

an order. We wanted to include a twist to

this thriller where this man would be

a killer who kills beautiful

women, who are

all very the

same.

 

Second Idea

 



 

to

begin

there would

be an inspector who

comes to a mental health

asylum, to investigate a mysterious

death. The inspector look at an outline of

a body on the floor, he speaks to someone and

looks back and the body has gone and then a black out. 

 



Our group idea sharing worked with ease, we all agreed that we would interpret the two ideas as one.

 

Although, we were worried that the OCD idea would come across quite cliché, we are still very confident with this idea and we feel that we can film it very interestingly. The sequence will include something unique about OCD; which we are going to research.



Premilinary Task Video

Our Prelim Video

 

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

 

Getting divided into our Thriller Groups

Today, we were put into small groups for our Media Studies Thriller Coursework.  I am in a Group with Ellie and Daria.

Our Media teacher decided on who would work together well, and he made the groups fair by equally splitting males and females up; this was due to the stereotypical idea: that the male students strengths were that they would come up with many unique, intriguing thriller plots and ideas, that the public would most definitely go and see, but their weaker areas would be putting effort into how the set would look on the day.

Whereas the vast majority of the female students, have the strength of been very creative (not all girls), and are very capable of designing out very precisely, the design of the set, the costumes and the way they wanted the thriller to be filmed on the shoot day.

Our potential strengths in the group currently consist of three creative students. Ellie is an art student, Daria is a textiles student, and as for me I am a theatre and dance student; outside of school, in my own time, I love sketching and painting.

Our weaknesses are that Daria and Ellie are quite shy and quiet, this was a problem at first, as communication was lost a lot and I had to take the lead of the speaker and present our sketch to the class, but then as we grew as a group and bonded more, we all became equally a leader.

I am very pleased with my group, as we all get along very well in Media, and I am looking forward to working with Ellie and Daria in the near future.

Thriller Idea 4

Lake

It’s a normal night out for typical teenagers. There are a group of ordinary teenagers that love partying and going to house parties. There is this one house party, they will never forget.

    This opening sequence starts off with this one girl, Stacey, drinking a bottle of beer and singing. There is a huge garden outside of this house and Stacey, Matt, Harry, Taylor and Harriet go outside and they are all drunk. Stacey has too much to drink and drowns in the lake and it ends.

Thriller Idea 3

Basement

This woman and man are planning to get married. She works as a hairdresser and he is a policeman. They love each other so much and have a very good relationship. But being a policeman is hard work for their relationship. He gets into a lot of fights and goes through many dodgy, scary experiences and is injured quite badly. One night this policeman comes across two young lads who are taking drugs in the middle of the street during the day, and he does not like this. This policeman gets into a lot of trouble with these two lads and it does not end, as a happy ever after for him and his wife unfortunately.

     We start in a basement, of this man in a wedding suit hung upside down. He is gagging and is terribly injured and dying slowly, there are two tough guys beating him up. The camera goes from his head up his body to show his injuries and then it goes through the floor to show what’s happening upstairs. Upstairs there is a wedding part, with the bride in her wedding dress, the bridesmaids and all the family sitting on this long table and  there is one chair missing. And the bride says “Has anyone seen Steve?”, and the camera goes back to Steve dead hung in the basement, swinging.

Thriller Idea 2

Key

This film is based on a young girl, who is on her way to school and we notice this key is always close to her. We see her live her normal life, with her friends and at school. All of a sudden things start to go wrong. She thinks she seems to have a stalker who always follows her. She starts to have horrible nightmares about a figure slitting her neck with a sharp item. It turns out that this is true, she does have a stalker and he is a fifty year old bus driver. He has followed her for a couple of months now, and knows her every move.

   The opening sequence begins with a nightmare of a hand over a young girls mouth and a sharp item slitting her neck open and then it cuts straight to this young girl, who has had this nightmare waking up in shock in bed and she’s hyperventilating. This key is on her bed side table when she wakes up and she picks it up and has a shower and we still see this key on the side, as she closes her eyes in the shower, the next really short flashback of the nightmare pops up again, the girl gets out of the shower gets dressed and goes downstairs, has her breakfast and goes out the door. As she close the doors, she looks at her hand, and there is a close up shot of her hand with the key in it and her hand curls up slowly in slow motion over the key.

 

Thriller Idea 1

Media Thrillers

Tube station

This film is based on a traditional English family that are travelling up to Scotland to their holiday home for a weekend. They travel up to Scotland by tube station and then by taxi. They are running really late for the train and their youngest little boy is crying and screaming because he is tired. They run for the train and finally make it, and there seems to be a lot of technical difficulties on the train and in their house in Scotland. A main part to this film is this scary looking man, who is always smirking; he is the ticket man, he is on the same train; he is the taxi driver. Many mysterious things go on during their weekend in Scotland.

     The opening sequence starts off at the London tube station. We are introduced to an English family of four; a mum, a dad and two young boys. The youngest of the two boys is crying and screaming, and the family are running late for their train. The dad buys their train ticket and we get a shot of the ticket man’s face smiling at them.  They are now sprinting and running down the stairs for this train, tension rises, we can hear the panting of the dad, the voice at the station calls “platform 11A calling at Larbert Station”, the public are getting louder and louder. They finally get on the train, as the doors in slow motion start closing, the lights flicker and we get a shot of this familiar creepy man looking out of the train, sitting down, looking at the camera smirking and then everything goes pitch black. And the title appears with a sound effect.

 

Kill Bill- Buried Alive Scene

Beatrix's Buried Alive Scene

 

 



 

 

1
The scene starts with hammering with nails on the coffin. The hammering of the nails is much louder than it would be in real life; this is so that as an audience member it effects us too . The long notes create a sense of calmness which juxtaposes with the hammering and the heavy breathing going on in this scene. It creates a slight discomfort for the audience with the contrasting sounds.

2
At this moment in the scene, the hammering slows down which suggests that they are nearly finished. There is one final hammer , which is extra loud and has a certain edge to it which suggests that the man using the hammer puts a lot of effort into the final hit. Then the screen goes black, this tells us that the coffin has been properly sealed and her life is going to end soon.

At this point as the screen is pitch black we can hear a few things. Beatrix is breathing hysterically and whimpering heavily and deeply. There is music that plays throughout the whole thing. Having a plain black screen makes the audience focus on the sounds, and at this moment I felt almost as if I were in the coffin and it effected me as I thought, imagine if I were her in that coffin, what an earth would I do? The heaviness of Beatrix's breaths suggest that she is having a hard time getting oxygen in the small coffin.
As well as Beatrix breathing quickly you can hear shovelling of the soil being chucked on top of the coffin.

3

The sound and effects of the soil then being dropped on top of the coffin is strong and identifiable. The idea of the sound being strong is so that it implies that there is a lot of it being shovelled on and that it’s quite thick and dense. Also, it is what Beatrix would here, this makes the audience feel that they are in the coffin with her.

 

At this point, the shovelling is still going on; the noise of the soil plying on top is getting quieter and quieter but she tries to scream. Her screams are so quiet in comparison to the shovelling sounds, this shows that no one can hear her. Beatrix's screams are distressed and full frustration; not sadness in the slightest. This seems to suggest that she is more agitated about the situation than she is sad.

The Shining: Opening sequence Analysis

The Shining
 

 

I studied the film 'The Shining' and from a first preview of the credits, you do not see any characters, just a car with a person driving it. The camera shooting this is high up in a helicopter; this gave the feeling that someone/something was following this cars movement, a sense of foreboding. There is also the fantastic eerie, horror background music which automatically tells the audience it is a horror and  that something terribly bad was going to take place. The start of the film is on a mountain side, that looks desolate and no other people are around. The car looks like its heading to somewhere where the film is set and at the end of the credits the camera gets to a sort of resort.

Sexy Beast: Opening title sequence

Sexy Beast
 

 

 

 I also studied 'Sexy Beast', which was in contrast to the shining, as it is obviously a comedy. The main character is introduced, and he comes off as a rough, retired, wealthy Gangster "Bladdy 'ell"- his first line. His appearance is ironic to the name of the film 'sexy beast' which he does not come across as. He is in his own villa, in somewhere hot (like Spain) and deserted, I wonder why? He has a young Spanish boy cleaning for him, which shows his lazy character, as he is just lounging away sunbathing. A massive boulder rolls down the hill? It leaves the audience puzzled to why this happened, who did it and why was their a shot of a women driving her car. Had she pushed the rock to try and kill him? Is he a bad character? It raises many questions which draws the audience in to want to know more. 

Account of prelim post production

FIRST PRELIM EDITING SESSION

 

In today's Lesson, it was my first experience using the software 'Final cut pro'. We were first shown how to get onto the software and to find our work. We then as a group viewed all of the video footage we filmed together and we would choose the best quality sequences; by dragging the actual image of the video itself to be placed into the rush bin.
  Out of all of the sequences we had chosen, we then had to combine them as one whole footage. To do so, we had to go into the rush bin and we had to decide whether which video would go first etc.

 

 As a group we wanted the video where there was a mysterious, spooky, horror sound effect that Lulu and Luke made with their voices; with a close-up of my face looking down and distressed to introduce our short film. It automatically showed the audience what genre the film was going to be. Once we had selected one sequence, we could cut out the part we wanted to use by pressing on the keyboard 'I' which stands for In; 'O' which stands for Out - this would enable us to cut it and then we dragged the video down to the timeline; we'd continue this process with the rest of the small clips to create a short film.
  Overall this exercise with Matt taught me the overall basic instructions on how to use Final Cut Pro, how to cut sequences by using 'in' and 'out', that a shortcut to play a sequence you can press the spacebar and lastly how to combine the sequences into one.

Account of prelim shoot

 

 In our first Preliminary Task, we were used the Sony NX5 Camera. We had to set up the camera in the classroom, as this is where we were filming. We were told to set up the classroom however we wanted to for a short film, we could also choose our own storyline and two of us had to act, what is shown in the two images to the right.
 
  I went in a group of four, of which Luke and Lulu were filming and Sarah and I were acting, I was the RED person and Sarah was the BLACK. We decided to use the idea that I was sitting down on a desk with a ring on my finger and Sarah was shouting at me to take it off but I just couldn't resist, it was too beautiful.

 Overall, I think it went really well, it took quite a long time to get started; then we progressed on well. I think as a team we worked really well and effective together as we would all have different ideas to contribute. This activity gave us a feel of how to start to make a movie, it also showed me how long it must take to create one movie by all the different shots that were taken.