Target Audience, Institution and Location Requirements

Target Audience
We think the target audience for our film sequence would be teenagers from the age above 15 upwards. This is owing to the fact that we don’t think young children would be able to cope with or understand some of the difficult and disturbing concepts featured in the piece. We think that the sequence could be watched by both male and female audiences as certain aspects like the 'trapped in your own mind' idea or that somebody has a special talent or look so that they are excluded od others in our idea appeal to both genders. For example, we are sure that all types of people can relate to the theme of entrapment.

Institution
Our sequence would probably be a British Independent film production as our budget is not particularly high. Because our piece is the opening to a psychological thriller, our main emphasis is on the message that we are trying to convey rather than creating fantastic visual effects as a high value production like Hollywood would do.

Location Requirements
We are going to be shooting the entire sequence within the school campus as we are not using any extravagant, panoramic scenery. The main area where we will be filming is the studio space. The reason for this choice is that the studio is a plain, neutral room (black) so therefore is versatile and easy to work in. We will be filming the shots that include the use of bricks (wall building) in this area as it is practical. The shot of the baby being given from hand to hand will be filmed outside the boardinghouses The Lodge or Hurtwood House, which are looking quite grand.

Storyboard page 3

This is the third page of our first draft of our storyboards.

Stroyboarding page 2

This is the second page of the first draft.

Storyboarding page 1

That is the first page of our first draft of storyboarding. We will post a second draft if we finished developing the various angles.

Sound

This is what we thought of taking as the soundtrack and the ambient sound.

Cast list

That is the second page of our Cast list, but we might ask Doug Quinn if he can play the Father who gives his Baby away, instead of Adam.

Cast list

This is our Cast list til now. It will probably change once more.

Costumes

This is the list of the Costumes we need.

Props List and Set

This is our first draft of the props and set list.

We need for the wall mortar and bricks and a bathroom with basin and a mirror, for the vision when she washes her hands.

The process of storyboarding

A storyboard is an account of showing the series of individual shots that come together to set up the film sequence. The text should also tell us what sort of sound and light is used and the editing involved. There is an image of what each shot will roughly look like, accompanied by text which explains concisely what is going on in the mise en scene each time.


When doing my section of the storyboard sequence, I sometimes found it difficult filling in the details of the location as we are still not completely sure as to where exactly our sequence is going to be filmed. In order to make our storyboards, we were together as a group to make a list of the shot types, we are going to use in our sequence as well as the editing transition from one shot to another.
We were then given storyboard templates as seperate documents which we typed the details into before printing off so we could draw in the pictures of each shot.

Research (An analysis of The Shinning corridor scene)

The Shinning

The corridor scene. I analysed this scene to help me understand the way in which it is possible to shot a moving shot in a corridor that feels trapped and claustrophobic. The corridor is also hauted by the ghosts of the massacred family and explores the young boys supernatural/paranormal abilities. The music is very unsetteling and causes the audience to anticipate something horrific is about to happen. This anicipation is more frightening than the actual event itself.

Rosemary's Baby

This video is about witchcraft. The witches in it help the devil to rape the woman of the flat next to them. The woman after the raping of the devil, is getting a baby of the devil and the witches want to steel the baby when the woman gives birth to the baby.

Witches tormented up to the blood

It is a video which suits to the idea of a witch in the 17th century. Witches in this time were scared and tormented until they almost died. This is an inspiration for the whole film, not the sequence.

Video for our Thriller idea

The Blair Witch Project

This final scene reminds me on the scene in our thriller movie. The wall with all the hands of the children is quite impressive and scary.

Pictures for our thriller idea

For our coursework we were supposed to search for pictures, videos, etc. for our Thriller idea to have a better image of the idea.
The pictures are things that helped me to see the thriller idea more clearly.
The first is a long corridor with doors at the sides. This is where the girl is going through.

The second picture is the wall with hands on it. This makes the idea more real. The video The Blair Witch Project makes this picture even more scary.




The third picture is a red hair woman who has green eyes. In the 17th century women with red hair and green eyes were killed. This woman looks like our imagination of the character.

First group meeting of the idea and Synopsis of the Thriller idea

After the class all voted for specific ideas,our production groups were formed. Our inital meeting as a group involved an indepth discussion of the overall synopsis for the movie and a dicussion of the content of our opening scene. The idea developed significantly as we considered how to make it more generically authentic and engaging the audience.

To begin we aussumed the scene starts with a close up of a girl's hands building a wall in the dark. Voice over in the background: 'good fences make good neighbours' (repeated over & over). Jump cuts to a girl about age 16-18 waking up in a white room. Camera tracks out to wide shot, revealing that the girl is strapped to her bed, in a mental institution. Camera tracks forward into the girl's eye, as if going into her mind. We see a shot of her trapped in a long white corridor. She opens doors along the corridor but behind each door is just a wall.
She is screaming-runs through a bright light at the end of the corridor. Jump cuts to another shot of her in bed, screaming again. However after further discussion we came up with the following synopsis.
A synopsis helps us to understand the situation of the characters.

Synopsis
The story is set in 17th century England, a time when catholism ruled. The main protagonist is a girl, between the ages of 16 to 20. She is of Irish nationality, living n England and is very beautiful, with red hair and bright green eyes. Indimidated and frightened by her beauty, intelligence and the fact that her father mysteriously disappeared, leaving her alone, the other villages accuse her of being a witch and abuse her thraving nocks on her when she walks down the street. Tormented by this cruel treatment, the girl decides to isolate herself from the rest of the world, building a metaphorical wall around herself. This story is a flashback into the past which takes place after the opening sequence, shaving how this girl came to be the way she is.

My Thriller idea

For our coursework we were supposed to make our own thriller idea and then to present it to the class, and afterwards the whole class is voting for some ideas which will be then produced.
For my Thriller movie I had two ideas. The first is called 'The Black Rose' which deals with a girl whos mother died and she wants to buy a flower for her dad. The old woman in the flowershop gave her a really 'special' flower: a black rose. The girl takes it home and puts it on the table of her fathers desk in the near of the bed.
In the next morning when she comes into the room of her dad, he is dead in his bed, blood over all and the head is cut off.
The girl goes again to the old woman and buys because of sadness a flower. She puts it on her desk and goes to sleep. In the middle of the night she wakes up, looks to the rose. In this moment a hand with a knife comes out. The girl takes suddenly the knife and cuts the hand in the flower off.
The next day she goes to the flower shop and sees the old woman who just has one hand. Shock on her face. And then black.
For this idea the locations would be a bedroom and a room which is looking like a flowershop.
The equipment I would need for this idea is a black rose, a bed and a knife. The characters are the old lady in the flower shop, teenager girl, and the dad. The tension is generated because of the darkness in the scene where the hand comes out of the flower. The institution of making the film would be TV production CO like CH4.


The second idea is about a little girl who is alone at home. Her dog lays under her bed like every night. So that she is not scared, she lets her hand down so that her dog can lick her hand. In a wide shot you can see her leting her hand down and under the bed laying the murderer. She falls asleep. A second later she wakes up because she hears something dropping, like a water tap.
She stands up and goes into the kitchen. Nothing. She goes back to bed. Falls again asleep. A second later she wakes up again. The watertap is still dropping. She goes into the bathroom. Nothing. She goes back to bed. But the dropping is not stopping.
So she goes again into the bathroom, takes the shower curtain away and the dog, hanging, the tummy slit, blood over all. In blood letters is on the wall: Also murderers can lick. Her face in a close up. Then the title: 'Psychopath'.
For this idea the location would be a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom.
The tension is generated because the auidence can see the murderer under her bed so that the audience knows before the protagonist knows what is going on. For this idea I would need for the equipment dog which is slit, a bed and a shower curtain. The character has to be a little girl and a men with scary eyes. I think it is a good idea because most of young kids are scared by what is laying under the bed. So the movie would be something for people in the age of 16-24.

Thriller Posters

The differnece to the Horror movies is shown also in the posters.
The Thriller posters are more 'normal' and not with blood and supernatural. It looks more like a taken picture than a edited Poster.

Horror Poster

Here are different Posters of Horror movies. The first and the last one are similar because the screaming mouth but still differnet becaus in the first poster you can see that the person has in its face pictures of differnet situations which makes it on the first view mysterious and spooky.

What is a Thriller? What is a Horror?

The word Thriller comes from the word to thrill which means pierce.
The Thriller genre is diffficult to define because so many of the emotions and reactions that come from Thriller are part of the whole experience of film. It is a 'meta-genre'.
The types of Thriller can be very variuos. Most used type is the psychogical like Seven, I am Legend or The Ring.
Action and Espionage type is something like James Bond movies and Charade with Audrey Hepburn. Another often used type is the paranomal and ghosts Thriller type. Movies like Gothica and Panic Room.
The Thriller creates fear, apprehension and suspense in the hearts and minds of the audience and relies on intricacy of plot.
It plays on our most basic worries by drawing on the most infanite and therefore repressed thoughts. These thoughts can be voyeristic, sexual or violent.
The Thriller achieves this by raising questions or Enigma codes in the mind of the audience.
The audience also experiences a sense of ambiralence. They feel a sense of identification and sympathy with the hero's or victim's vulnerabilit.
Most Thrillers have universal themes at their core - the struggle over love, death or money. It is this Struggle that often enthralls the spectator.
It is also done through a sense of delay. When something does happen, there is a sense of relief from tension.
In many ways the Thriller genre is sadomachistic - the audience enjoys watching the director cause pian and suffering to the protagonists. Our pleasure is drived from their discomfort.
Horror films are slightly different to Thrillers.
Horror movies are most of the time based on death, mental illness and supernatural.
Thrillers are to excite and Horror are about blood and death and haven't sometimes a real story in it.
Movies like Frankenstein,Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are more the classic horror literature.
Halloween, Friday the 13th, and The hills have Eyes are more the new movies.

Our introduction to Final Cut Pro

Our last media lesson was about the editimg prgramme Final Cut Pro. That basically showed us how to use Final Cut Pro and Server. Final Cut Pro is a software package which runs just on G5 Macs.

The first step was to bring the shots into the programme so that the sequence of shots is coherently cut together to construct a narrative or montage.

We were introduced into Final Cut Server which allows the storage of projects and prevents loss of work and essay access by checking work 'out' and 'in'.

The third thing we did was the logging which means basically to take the best shots from the diditised rushes and this allows careful selection of the takes and rejection flawed material.

If this was done the fourth thing we did was the logged shots were placed onto chronological timeline.

You then cut the shots and trimmed to generate continuity and conceal the illusion that the sequence is not spontaneous.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

We were established in different small groups. We had to film to actors, who were choosed by ourselves. They had to play a scene with just a few sentences and different shots. Our sequence was simply just that both actors are inside the room, an argument breaks out and one actor wants to go out, shut the door. For the filming we used a Pd170.

My group worked in studio and that was effective because in the studio was the set of a room. All of us worked with the camera and the actors. I did sometimes the part with "Standby, Rolling, and Action." and holding and moving the camera.
The lightning was pretty soft and dark which gave the scene atmosphere.
That was effective because one of the actors was threatening and the other one was quite scared, and so the soft dark light gave the situation a pretty dangerous touch.

We checked the if the camera was set up correctly and when it was not we changed it. The tripod level was everytime right. The angles we choosed were from the low to the high angle shot and we made once a shot with just the feet of the actors. The decision that we used different angles was because of the different situtaions it could be.
The 180 degree rule was everytime conformed. We tried every shots to see what fits the best to the text. However, we just filmed first in whole sequences, which changed then to a Medium shot and continues to close ups of the feet, one actors face and the door. Then to over the shoulder of both of the actors.
We tried to get so many different shots how possible.


The Prelim Task:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt7d3Tjw98s

Making movies

Our last practical lesson was about to make short shots of different camera techniques. The first shot was a wide shot so that the camera takes the whole event. Then comes a cut and after that comes a mid shot, but still the same action.
The following shot is a close up and most of the shots are done more than once. It is still the whole sequence.
We also learned the 180 degree rule so that if it is a two shot create line and draw 180 degree line.
And it can record everywhere on this side. We also had a car example to make the rule clearer. And never cross the line , so just film from one side.

Tripod

We learned to use a tripod.

When you work with the tripod you can put them higher or lower and lock them.
Pan and tilt locking at the tripod head. You put the camera on by pushing button, and then lock it.

Camera

In our practical lesson with the cameras we learned that moving postcards means images which let the action play through.
In the right upper corner in the screen of the camera is the time code and the camera takes 25 frames a second. And the number 16:9 is the wide aspect. A TV screen is every time like this wide. DVCAM means the type of film which you are filming. The 50 is the shutter speed and that means it is twice as fast as normal. If you increase it, sharps for action scenes and never below 50! The button gain is for the synthetic light. For that is the letters ‘dB’. If you want it brighter, it reduces quality. So take light and not gain! So it should be zero. F5.6 is doing the brightness which is called exposure. If you want it brighter make it lower and if it is higher it is darker. Wide balance (wabal) is important because it regulates the sun or man light for in- and outside.

The interview in the studio

We did an interview with our group with
a few questions about the subject media,
our favorite music and movies, etc.
In the studio were three people
who were the interviewer and two cameramen.

My horror poster

I was pleased to produce a Horror movie poster which I had to create with my own pictures and own ideas. My poster shows two girls who are stepsisters and one wants to kill the other because of jealousy. This jealousy is based on the bigger stepsister who is envious on the good relationship between the younger one and the parents.
The title of the movie is ‘The Stepsister’ which deals with the two girls and I took the title because the people are used to the naughty stepsister. So when I thought about what type of poster it should be it came to my mind that because of the bad stepsister myth, it could be a good theme for a horror movie. The slogan ‘Don’t trust the smile’ comes from the deviousness of a person who is smiling but thinking something extreme different.
The title is in the biggest font size because it has to be the eye catcher. The slogan is a little smaller than the title but also big enough to read on the first view. But the actors name and director’s name are a much smaller than the slogan and title. I chose the color dark blue because it looks mysterious and scary. I also screened in the directors name and the name of the actors. I just created new names for the directors because I didn’t refer to anything that I had in my mind.

I edited the picture of my sister on Photoshop, cut the head of my picture off, copied this part and pasted it into the picture with my sister. I made the light a little brighter on the part of my head and put my head into the upper left corner because the viewers attention goes first to the middle and then to the corners.
For the smudging of the people around the little girl I took the tool ‘smudge’.
Because of the higher and lower position is there Juxtaposition.

In my poster the signifier is the big stepsister because you can see how much she hates her sister. The signified is the mean smile in her face and the danger which comes from it because you as the viewer could think a lot but do not know exactly what will happen.

In conclusion I think that this is a good example for a horror film because it shows how extreme it could be in a family and in my opinion it is nothing what somebody just imagined because they were bored, but something realistic. The viewer gets the first impression that the girls like each other and just on the second view you realize because of the title and the dark colors the danger which is coming.

My Blade poster

This is my Blade poster. I amde it with photoshop and it is a close up of his face and in the right lower corner is the title.

Audrey and me

Audrey Hepburn and me in one person. I edited the picture with photoshop and paste my face on to where usually Audrey Hepburn's face is. It is a wide shot. I love Audrey Hepburn, she is the greatest actress of her time.

That is my best friend and me. It is a close up and a low angle shot. The light is very bright so that the faces are more darker.

Me

Me in black and white. It is a close up of my face and is a the lower angle shot. I like this picture because it doesn't show my whole face and so the position of the photograph and me is quite clear. Which shows the Juxtaposition.

My family

This is my family and the photo has been taken a few months ago. My dad, my mum, my little brother and sister.

It is a wide shot so that everybodys face is good to see.

Photographs of me

This picture is one of me in the school dinninghall. It shows my own in a changed way. So I smudged myself three times and and smudged everything around me, so that if you look the first time, you will think I am in a mirror. In the upper and lower right corner I copied a part of my face and changed it to a different color, so that it looks like I am a ghost in the mirror.

The three parts of me are wide shots but the parts of my face on the right side are close ups. It is taken from a higher angle. Because of that it is Juxtaposition between the photograph and me. Espacially because of the lightning. My first face is black and white and all the others are in normal skin color. The darkness of my first lips and the brightness of my second lips are a good difference to each other.

My Introduction to me

Hey guys,

it's Sarah and this is my media blog for the next two years. I chose media because I really think that media is a subject which is pretty interesting, espacially because I've never done it before. I want to learn how to use a camera and to make movies. And another reson is that I think of to study media and do something with advertisement or journlism. My favourite films are 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Cruel Intentions' and 'Sweeny Todd'. I love to listen to 'The Fray', 'Paramore' and 'Snow Patrol'. I'm a little bit addicted to facebook and skype. And also to my mobile phone and my iPod. My favourite series are 'Grey's Anatomy', 'Private Practice', 'Gossip Girl' and 'Gilmore Girls'.

And now sit back, relax and enjoy the show...

Xoxo Sarah