First Cut and Feedback

On the 13th December we had to produce a first final cut to show the class, we orgianlly had doubts about our opening being able to work properly when put together, however Dan and Beth spent their time after school editing the rest of the shots so that we had a final cut to show. Dan also found a non copy right sound track of a voice of a women reporter speaking about a number of murders which had gone on which he then edited into our production where we had the TV playing at the start. Previously we had thought about getting rid of the shots with the TV because we were unable to find a way to represent a news report, and having the TV on a random channel made it irrelevant to our production, but by having Dan record this sound we found that the shots then work once again meaning we were going to keep these shots.

When showing our final cut we already knew that it wasn't totally finished for a number of reasons, for example we hadn't yet inserted our titles which were going to go at the end of the scenes inside the house, so there was a break in our piece where they are going to go. We also need to take a few more shots of the house to get some establishing shots to make sure we set the scene in our opening sequence.

                                                   

Feedback

After watching our first final cut we recieved a number of feedback about how we could improve our work. Firstly it was noted that the thriller music which came in each time the killer appeared (twice) came in to strong, and sounding a little unprofessional, to change this we are going to try and find a more understated thriller music with a lower tone to it as this will create a build up in our production and also build tension.

Next some people commented on our use of POV shots for the killer. The feedback suggested that we did use the shots well, however we let them run for too long, to adapt this we are going to cut down these POV shots so they are of a shorter length, because at the moment they perhaps seem like too much at the time they run for. Another comment was that we should add in some establishing shots to show the audience the kind of setting and genre of the film, as at the moment it goes straight into her storyline. We had already noted that we wanted to do this so we were aware that we needed to do this. We have thought about having shots which show the killer walking towards the house so that we see the location and also the time of day etc. which will all combine to create successful establishing shots. Our missing titles were brought up in our feedback which again we were already aware of. Another suggestion made to us was the fact that would go potentially increased intense moments to build suspense in our opening. This could be done either in the river shots or when the girl is going up her stairs etc. Lastly it was said that we perhaps should either cut down the river shots as some of the shots don't actually need to be there and instead just make the section drag on for too long, mostly the shots which show Dan running after Beth as we did a number of these and combined them all together. Although, as a team we have thought about getting rid of the running scene altogether as it shows Dan again which can be too much after already seeing him killing a girl at the start and will look to repetitive, and possibly replacing it with a montage of shots showing newspaper clippings about girls he has killed, which would mean less dialogue and more shots which set the scene.

To Do:

• Change music to a less intense track
• Add in film titles
• Cut down POV shots
• Add in establishing shots
• Increase intense moments

Filming Day Two

Here are some shots of where the filming took place on the second day of filming. We got most of our shots done for a sequence done last night as it was the main place where out sequence takes place. We had a friend of mine act in our shots as the girl who is drowned in the bath. She does A level drama so we thought it would be a good to use her as our actor. The shots include myself and ellie and dan in the photographs as we wanted to show how we filmed and what the setting was like. We orginally planned to film on the 30th November but we had sturggled to find free time for everyone in our group and we wanted to make sure that the standard of our work was a high standard was not rushed. I feel our gorup worked very well together as myself filmed the shots with help from the others. Dan acted in the actual film as well as him helping cristi with the mise en scene and beth will be doing the editing of our shots on the computer with the help of me. However, the camera ran of battery and we needed to film a few more shots but it wont take long as we filmed most of the shots we needed to do last night. 

Editing




Dan and Cristi recording sound



Mollie (Me) and Beth Editing the clips

Dan editing the sound

 Here are some photograph's of our group doing some work on our sequence. The first shot is of myself and Beth editing our clips. Beth and i were cutting the clips we had and making sure they flowed continuously so that there were no jump cuts in our sequence. This took me and Beth nearly two hours as we wanted it to be to a good standard. We left out shots we didn't really like and put in the ones that worked well. At first we had a beginning shot of Beth running of the bridge and then we continued into another shot that was a point of view shot, however, the shots were to similar so we decided to change the beginning and use a different shot that was a lot different so it flowed better. While we were doing the editing however, Dan and Cristi were filming sound effects we could add into our sequence for example: Footsteps, breathing ect. After we had done the editing of that part of our sequence, Dan worked on the sound. He added quite scary music to our sequence which worked well with the shot.  

First Shot Of Filming

Today we started filming for our production piece, we decided to begin with the outdoor running section as the weather hasn't been great but today was predicted no rain, also we wanted to get the outdoor filming finished before it got even colder.
We were lucky as the weather, although extremely cold, was dry and there was sunshine which made our shots look a lot better. We used the 2 hour media lesson to go down to the river by the library to begin filming.
The original outfit for Beth was a running skirt, trainers and jacket (provided by Beth) and also high knee socks and a vest top (provided by me). However, due to the cold weather I bought in a pair of leggings to give Beth the option, so we went ahead with the leggings. Also, Beth bought in a short sleeved top which was more suitable than the little vest top I had. We used her water bottle and iPhone as planned. Dan provided his outfit as planned, with a black coat and trousers, he also bought a black apron in which we tied around his head, which created a hood effect which made him appear a lot more mysterious and anonymous.
The first shots I needed to capture were of Beth running, to make it more fluid so it didn't cut from her leaving her house straight to being at the river, we decided to have Beth running towards the bridge to come alongside the river. I was in charge of filming, so Dan and Cristi helped me decide on the best angles I also in a way took charge on saying what wasn't right with the shots as well as Beth's outfit for example if Beth's iPod headphone weren't visible.
We captured several shots of Beth running towards and over the bridge so that we would have a selection to choose from when we began editing.
After helping Dan tied an apron around his head we then had to include him in the shots, so  I chose the best camera angle to have so that it would appear mysterious when Dan came into the shots. 
We had the issue of there being several people walking/running/walking dogs along the river so at times we had to wait until the path was clear again.
We did several POV shots which I did whilst I sped up behind Beth as this was easiest to keep to his same speed etc. 

Cristi (Holding the equipment)

Cristi, Mollie (Me) and Beth

Dan (In his outfit)

Here are some shots of us filming for our opening sequence. What we have done is film the last part of the sequence first as its easier and it wouldn't take as long as the first sequence. I am the one who is holding and filming Beth running. Cristi, who is next to me is showing me the story board to help me get the right shot what we planned to do. Dan who you cannot see in this photograph took this photograph as he was acting in last part of the sequence but for this shot he wasn't in the shot. For this ending bit of our opening sequence we filmed a girl (Beth) jogging and she is being followed by the crazy man, we did all different shots such as: Point of View shot, Handheld shot, long shot ect. Our team worked well together as we listened to each others ideas. Cristi was in one of the last parts of the sequence but because she felt like she wasn't doing much she helped doing the camera work with me and came up with better shots to get scary effects in our sequence. Dan was acting as the scary man in our sequence and he had a all black outfit with a black hood which kind of hid his face from side views shots which has a mysterious effect.

Production Company Clip

Here is the clip we chose to do for our production Company. Our production company is called 'BCDM' Which stands for Beth, Cristi, Dan and Mollie.

Planning Our Filming:

Our team are all doing different A levels so by planning our days when we are all able to do the filming will help us get organised.

Thursday 29th November

• Cristi - She is making sure that all the costumes are together for the first shot of filming. This includes: Jogging shorts, Jogging top. She will also make sure that we have the appropriate props such as: Water bottle and iPod.
• Dan - He is making sure that we are able to record the dialogue and sound effects for the shot we will be filming on thursday.
• Mollie (Myself) - I will be filming the actual shot of the girl jogging a long the river making sure i get as many shots as possible so that we hae a variety to choose form and making sure we can get get the best to our achievment.
• Beth - She will be acting in the shot as the girl who is jogging so she is going to make sure she is in the right costume and she will be listening to what we will say to make sure the shot is how we want it and like our story board.

Thursdays filming will be the last part of our film as its the most easiest part and will take the quickest. The last part consists of a girl jogging and the crazy man is following her, this part will be what the actual film is about.

Friday 30th November 

Friday we will be filming the main part of our film where it is taking place in the house. This will take up a huge ammount of time which means we might not be able to get it all done on that day as we can only film it at night time as that is when it is set. So if we cant film it all that night we will arrange another night when all of our group is available to film.

Anamatic

Here is the video of our animatic of our storyboard:

Outfits, Hair & Make Up

For our opening we need to think of the outfits we are going to put each character in and also the hair and make up which will be styled for them. This is important to the mise en scene section of media, as it will show that we have thought about what the characters will look like and how we are going to represent the activity they are doing or the kind of person they are. Instead of uploading images of the exact outfits each character is going to wear, we can use images of the internet which show the look which we will be going for, the we will base our own outfits around the images we looked at.
There are 7 characters in our opening, some who are more prominent than others.

Casual look for babysitter

The main characters who we will be introduced to is the first girl who is babysitting, the killer and the final girl who goes on her run. Alongside these there is also the younger sibling being babysat, the parents of the girl who dies to begin with and the news reporter.

Girl babysitting at beginning
This girl is babysitting at home, so she is very casual and not in the slightest dressed up. Her hair will be put up to show that she is relaxed and comfortable, and her make up will be minimal, so again she is looking natural. To represent her being casual in her clothing we are going to have her in possibly pajamas to show she' simply lounging around, or loose, baggy clothes e.g. loose-fitting jumper to again emphasize the fact she is comfortable etc. We can combine the two of these ideas to create the best look her her. On the right is an image showing the casual look we could go for, though not identical, the baggy top with leggings shows her not paying too much attention to what she is wearing.


Girl on Run

 
Girl on a run
The girl who goes on a run will of course be wearing running gear, but taking into consideration the temperature we will be filming in we will decide carefully what the character will be wearing. Firstly, the girl will either be in running shorts/skirt or leggings with a loose fitting top as these will combine to show she is simply just going on a run. We will have a choice of giving her a jacket to wear also which of course will depend on the weather. She will also be wearing normal running shoes so that she simply looks like a girl going on a run.

Story Board

Here is our story board, out of our group Myself and Dan did the story board, i drew half of the pictures of the story board and drew the other half, I added the notes and information underneath each shot to give a little information on what we need to do when filming. In these descriptions box includes: What type of shot it is, What sound is in the shot and how long the shot is, this is because we need to make sure our work is exactly two minutes long and by doing this story board allows us to be organised.

Possible Locations For Our Sequence

Here are some possible locations and shot ideas for our sequence:

Location 1 - My House

The first location we need for our opening is a house which will be where the daughter is babysitting, this is a large part of our opening scene so we need to make sure that we choose a location where we will be able to capture all the right angles, it also needs to have a good filming space around the house as there will be several shots as we see the killer looking into her house from the outside  We have decided to use my house for this part of our opening as mu house has good angles from which we can see into her house and also her front door opens easily without a key, so this is a good way of the killer accessing her house. She also has good views from each room which enable us to film from the angles we wanted to.

The top right image is a shot from the staircase up to my second floor, this is a shot which we will see the killer going up, this works for our opening because the room on the back wall is the bathroom which the girl will be killed in, which can forebode what is going to happen as we will be able to hear the bath water running and possible see the girl moving about in the bathroom. This show also works well as it shows the closeness of the rooms which is needed when we see the killer walk from one room the other, this will build tension as we will see how close he is to the girl. The image on the left is from my younger sisters room, this will be useful for when the girl goes to check on her younger sister who is asleep in bed and goes over to the window to shut the blind while the mysterious man is watching her, the view from this window gives a good shot of the area where we will have POV shots of the killer coming towards the house. This shot will be earlier on in our opening and before this there will be POV shots of the killer walking towards the house The last shot is of the bathroom where the girl is going to be killed. The angle we will be using this room for is the POV shot of the dead girl where we are looking up at the dad who finds her body hanging over the bath. This room has a good space on the floor for the girls body to be slumped so it we'll look mor realistic rather than a little cramped space. Also the bath is in good line with the doorway so that when the POV shot is looking up towards her dad, it is at a good angle, and the dad doesn't haven't to walk any further around etc. to get the shot we want.

Location 2 - Beth's House

For the second section of our opening we needed a second house as we watched our next character get ready to go on her run. For this house we needed a shot where we could film by the front door and see a TV in the background as a news report on the attack of the first girl would be playing. The best house for this is Beth's as when you film from her front door you can see into her living area and the TV is at a diagnanol, this will allow for us to be filming the girl but with the TV running in the background which links together the first section to the current section.

Location 3 - The River

After we have filmed the girl leaving her house we need to film her running along the river, this is the next important part of our opening as we are re-introduced to the killer as her is watching her from inside the bushes. We decided to use the river which runs along Ware, but we are using the section of the river behind the library as there is a bridge which we want to use for the girl to run over and a bush opposite where the killer will be hiding.

Our Name Of Our Film

We wanted a plain and simple name but we wanted it to be effective and have a hidden meaning to give a mysterious kind of effect. We wanted something that has to do with revenge so the name we decided to come up with is Reprisal. Its another word that could mean revenge. We think this is plain and simple and effect, the next task we will be doing is a title picture that could be used for posters to advertise our film.

This is our possible title font:

Diegetic and Non Diegetic Sound

Throughout out our film sequence we will be using both types of sound. We will use diegetic sounds such as: Running bath water, Screaming, Foot steps,dialogue and door openings ect. This will cause suspense not just for the audience but for the actual characters in the film which will make it more believable. We will also use Non diagetic sounds which will include: Scary music, exaggeration on breathing and sound effects. This will create more suspense to the audience and make the audience feel as if they know something the character doesn't. For example when the man is walking toward the house and then goes upstairs we will play very suspense music to let the audience know that there is something going to happen, where the character(s) don't know what is going to happen.

Film Company

As we have decided that our film genre is horror we wanted to choose a suitable film company that knows a lot about our specific genre and from this research we found that a good company that is known for its big hits at horror films is Twisted Pictures. They have done films such as: The saw sequences, Mothers Day and dead silence. These are just some of the films they have produced and me and the rest of my group have seen quite a few of these films and we know that they are good type of films to take inspiration for out films.

 

Inspiration For Our Opening Film Sequence

Our ideas were inspired from all sorts of things, mainly by other horror films we have seen. The main film we thought of that kind of relates and is similar to our idea is the films 'Scream' There are many films that carry on from each other, but all having the same story line of some crazy person that no one knows who it is, goes round killing  people with a knife. Its very jumpy and scary and we thought this was a good idea to look at these films as we could get inspiration on the camera angles, costumes, editing and sound. These are vital parts for our sequence as these are all our individual roles and we want to make sure we get them just right for our opening film sequence. 

 

 

Here is a screen shot i found from one of the scream films. This is a very good example of how mysterious the film can be, we want the audience to be able to get frustrated at the fact the girl in our opening sequence can't see the man coming for her but they can which makes our sequence have a sense of fear making it obvious what genre our sequence is.

Our Team and Our Roles

Dan, Mollie (Me), Cristi and Beth

This is me and my group and we are working together to come up with a good productive opening film sequence to show off our team skills as well as our own individual skills.

Dan: He was extremely interested in the sound and SFX side to the film sequence and because our genre is horror he has lots of ideas that we could include in the sequence.

Mollie (Myself): I was interested in the actual filming of the sequence so for our opening sequence I got a professional camera to get better quality shots with. As well as this I have done a lot of the editing for our sequence, espeically the beggining with to colour distortion and over laying video clips.

 

Beth: She has helped through coming up with the ideas for our sequence as well as helping with the editing.

Our Opening Sequence

For me and my groups idea we decided to base it on the genre horror, we chose this because we have all seen and very familiar with horror films so we decided that this would be the best genre to do. Our opening seen starts with a girl baby sitting her younger sister while her mum and dad are both out for the evening. While watching television after her sister is put to bed she goes downstairs and watches the television. She watches the news and it mentions how a girl has been murdered in her local area and the man still hasn't been captured. She doesn't really think anything of it at first as she suspects its nothing important  We then had ideas that it would then cut to a camera getting close and closer to the house that she is in but as if its out of his eyes giving it a very scary atmosphere, the background behind the man murdering is that his daughter was murdered and never found and now he has turned very crazy and wants to kill everyone else's daughters. After that the girl goes up the stairs to run a bath, as she goes to check on her little sister in her room she walks past the window to pull the blind down and she see's a man standing outside her house, she assumes he is waiting for someone but she is a bit freaked out, she quickly pulls the blind down and gets her phone out of her pocket. She calls her mum asking if she can come home soon and mentions the man who was standing outside her house. She then walks back into the bathroom and is checking on the bath, we then have a jump cut to the man again who you see entering through the house door, you see him slowly walking up the stairs still only from his eyes making it a mystery to what he looks like close up, it then snaps to the girl back in the bathroom and she is looking in the mirror, she then turns off the tap and everything goes quiet, all of a sudden the camera shows the door (through the girls eyes) as the man runs through the bathroom and strangles her. 

Next it jumps to the next scene where a another girl (who will be the main character  about to go for a jog, as she grabs her iPod and her water bottle she walks out her house door, the camera then looks at the television and its another news report of the girl in the house before has been murdered and her parents found her dad, it slowly zooms in on the television to give a spooky effect. It then cuts to the girl going for a jog and the camera shows her jogging on this bridge but all of a sudden there is a glimpse of the man again and it shows the camera through his eyes again and how he is watching her. After he follows her she turns round and see's him and then there is a massive scream and that's when our opening is finished. 

Film opening title analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20PQBtyfNZY - The title sequence I chose to analyse was the film Juno. I chose this because I have seen the film and its very indie style and stereotypically indie title sequences are very interesting rather than jam packed with big font that grabs your attention. 

 

This is the first part of the title sequence, rather than any ordinary sequence that would normally have writing straight away; it starts with a very jolly catchy song which instantly makes you feel grabbed into the film. This is a long shot as it shows her whole length of her body as well as a background. The colour that stands out straight away and is the focal point of this print screen is her red coat, which could indicate a sign of love… or maybe even death or evil. However, basing it on the music of how jolly it is you instantly feel happy so the indication is more love.

This second screen shot is similar to the other one, however, it shows two completely different picture which is separated by the tree stump. This could indicate she is living in two different worlds, one that’s a

fantasy (the sketch part) and then a normal life (the normal part), although, there is something in the way (the tree) that might be getting in the way. This shot is still a long distance as it has her whole body in it.

Here is another print screen I have chosen to analyse from the film Juno. This one is very different to the first one, yet it’s very similar. It’s very different in the fact it’s much more artistic, which makes it feel more emotionally happier as the colours are much more vibrant and bold. However, the reason why it’s very similar is because it’s still of her carrying the same bottle with the same red coat, it’s just been made into an artistic appearance.

This print screen is much more different than the other three as it’s a different camera angle. This time it seems to be at a low angle making her look bigger and if you look in perspective that she is bigger than the house. Also the background isn’t very detailed and mainly is like a sketch, the only detail is her body which makes her the focal point of the shot.

 This shot looks as if you’re in front of her and actually looking at her. I think this screen shot is very interesting as it looks as if she is walking into the darkness which could give hints about the future. I still like how they have made her the focus by having a lot of detail and the background is very sketchy and dull.

 

I like this screen shot as its much more close up than the others which gives you more detail on what she actually looks like. The background also has a lot more detail which takes away the focal point away from her. The expression on her face makes me think that there is something on her mind which makes you want to keep watching.

This screen shot is very interesting as it doesn’t show her face which it has done in the last screen shots I have done. This time the focal point is the water bottle because the yellow colour is very vibrant which stands out. This is another close up as you can’t see her whole body, whereas the other one was on her face this time this close up is on her feet.

Lastly this screen shot is very different to all the others. It’s at a much different camera angle than all the others as this is a high angle shot. It’s like you’re looking into her life and it makes her look very vulnerable and small which could indicate how she feels in the film.

Our Final Outcome

I feel that over all the camera work our team did was good. We made sure that we used a tri-pod to ensure we had a steady camera shot so it made it more professional and have a better presentation. Overall in our video, the shots were very steady and i feel that the video shots were well done. However there were a few things that went wrong with our video, we didn't include two lines each of dialogue for the character, however we did actually film two lines of dialogue for each character but because the time limit was meant to be thirty seconds, we cut it out to make it the expected time. It still made sense without this dialogue but it would have been better if we kept them in.

We used varies of shots to make our video more interesting for example we used over the shoulder shots to emphasise the fact that, that person was talking. These over the shoulder shots i felt went well as they shaped the other persons body. However the main thing that  i felt went wrong, was that we spent half of the time on our video getting the characters actually into the room. Although this is a huge mistake, i will learn from it and make sure i focus more on getting the essential features of the task into the video.

Preliminary Task

The Names of the people in my group were Mollie Neal (Me), Ellie Macgreger, Shirley Kirby and Billy Saxon. For this Preliminary task we decided to film in our school's sixth form coffee bar. We chose this because we thought it had a lot of space and a good area to change the position of the camera when filming. We needed a door way as one of our main focuses was match on action so we needed to do a film of one of the characters walking through the door way but we wanted continuous flow so we filmed from behind the character walking through the door and then we filmed from inside the coffee bar filming them walking in the door. This is so we could make our video flow very fluently. The equipment we used was Canon Legria camcorder to film our video. Then we used plus Adobe Premiere editing software so we could edit our videos so it continuously flowed.We were practicing many skills with this task including: Match on action, show reverse shot and over the should shot. Most of the task went well and we worked together as team and we all played different roles. Ellie and Shirley were the two characters and Myself and Billy worked on filming and decided what different shots would look best for each take. The thing we struggled on was trying to get over the shoulder shots without making the background the main focus of the video. So we had to re-take some videos so we got the best possible outcome.