Production Meeting - 30/11/10

This week, Becky was not here so I thought of things that we needed to start to do now that we are ending the main part of our planning stage. We need to find suitable and convienient times to film for everyone and pick final costumes and props etc.

Props

We need a girls and boys bedroom, one for each character, for the getting ready scenes. They will need to be filled with personal items to the owner as a normal bedroom would. They each need to have a wardrobe filled with clothes for the actors to look like they're choosing their outfits for the night. Before the date they need to wear comfortable, casual clothes to mimic them getting ready before they pick out and put on their final outfits. We need to have some make up for Alison, depending on which look we choose to give her.

For the date scene, we will need a dining room with a set out table and chairs facing opposite each other. The table will need to be set with plates, cutlery and glasses. The plates will have food on them and the glasses will need to have a drink in them to look like they are on a dinner date. The centrepiece of the table will be a candle in a wine bottle like those in restaurants and this will also provide a soft lighting in the room.

Indoor Locations

Becky has kindly allowed us to film at her house for the indoor scenes (getting ready and the dinner date). She has a dining room which we will be able to use to film the dinner date scene and we can use her bedroom to film the getting ready scene with Alison. She has also asked her neighbour to use his bedroom to film in for Will's getting ready scene as he needs a male bedroom.

The dining room is turquoise in colour and can be quite dark which adds to our desired effect and sets the mood of the film as being a bit cold and evil. It is a small room which makes it look like a cute and cosy little date for them. There is a mahogany table with chairs so we can arrange this to fit around them and how we want the location to look like according to the storyboard. With candles it will create a bit of a spooky but romantic atmosphere which is what we want.

The bedrooms are filled with personal items such as photos and personal belongings which make the audience relate to the characters in a way. It makes the film personal and allowing people to connect with it and the characters themselves. The bedrooms we are using are very close to each other which means that we will be able to film, hopefully, in the same day which makes it more efficient and practical for our actors.

*get photos off becky and put them here :)*

Costume & Image

For our film opening, me and Becky need to think of suitable costumes for our male and female actors which relate to the story. The costume tells the audience a lot about the characters such as their social class and in our film it will tell them that they are going on a date. Me and Becky have a rough idea of what we want the two actors to look like:

Alison Cowling:
Dress and Heels. We want her to look dressed up, like she has made an effort for this guy she is going on a date with. We'd like her to wear a dark coloured dress and we have asked her what sorts of clothes she owns so we can work with what she has and not have to buy something she may only wear once for this. She does own a dark coloured dress so this could work well with our film. I was thinking something smart but made casual by a cardigan or jacket like this example. For hair, we were thinking light curls/wavy hair like the image on the left. Her hair is already curly naturally so maybe style it a little to make it look like a natural, effortless style with a bit of glam for her date. For makeup, we were thinking of either having the classic smokey eyes look with pale pink/neutral coloured lipstick or go for a bold fire engine red lips and leave the eyes to look more natural with some mascara/eyeliner.


Will Steele:
Smart Casual. We want him to look like he has made an effort as well however doesn't want to look too smart as if they are going somewhere very formal. I think costume wise for Will, it would be suitable for him to wear jeans and a smart shirt maybe dressed down with a jumper, cardigan or blazer to go for that smart casual, laid back look. His hair already fits in with the whole image we want to give his character quite well, maybe a little styling during the getting ready scene to make the audience see he is making an effort for this girl and trying to impress her.

Scripting

Becky and myself have chosen not to have an dialogue in our film opening but instead let the music set the scene and atmosphere for the rest of the film. We have chosen to do this for several reasons.
Firstly, we think that this will draw more focus onto what is actually happening as the clips are quick and change a lot which could possibly make it sound a bit messy and jumpy. Secondly, the audience are kept in more suspense as they are not dragged down by a long conversation right at the beginning, instead we give them something eventful to grab their attention and get them interested in the film right from the start. Also, there is a big chunk of footage in our opening where the actors are completely alone so that they don't have anyone to talk to. This includes the getting ready scene and when Alison is alone in the forest in her visions. We think that it would be a bit silly to just have bits of dialogue scattered throughout. Lastly, a lot of the films we have looked at also didn't have any or much dialogue during the opening credits/scene so we are adopting this idea into our own film opening. An example of this keeping within our horror genre would be the opening to Saw 3.

However, we may include diegetic sound over the top of the music tracks we will use. This could be done for when we have the close up of Alison after she has been running through the forest. We could use the sound of heavy breathing and her trying to catch her breath or another example would be leaves crunching while she runs though the forest. These two are done very well in the opening of the film 'Shrooms' which I looked at before.

Opening Storyboard

This week, I drew out the storyboard for our film opening. Firstly, I drew out an extremely rough storyboard which mapped out what would be happening in our opening scene and the approximate timings of each clip. I also added in where the titles could be included. As it was only a first rough draft, I didn't include any specific camera shots, titles or editing processes.

I showed this to Becky so that we could agree on it and change anything that we didn't agree on to come up with a final, much more detailed storyboard. We agreed on this basic structure and then I went back and added a lot more detail and care into it. My final storyboard that I drew out includes the Shots, Titles, and Timings as well as what basically happens in each clip. This will help me and Becky a lot when it comes to filming as we will be prepared to film what we need and what sorts of shots we need to get enough footage to work with our storyboard and to create a film opening we are happy with. It will also help us when editing as we will know what we want done with each clip and how long each clip should last. From our timings, we can calculate the total time of our opening so that we know it meets the rough guideline of 2 minutes. With the timings I have given, it turns out to be 2:05 minutes long.

Title's Fonts

Becky and I have looked though various styles of fonts to try find something that will work well with our titles and shows off our genre. As we are doing a 'Romantic Horror/Thriller' we have looked at horror/thriller title sequences to see the style of typography used. We found that a reoccurring font style which was a font that looked as if it was handwritten or 'typewriter' styled. We went on DaFont, a website which offers font downloads, and searched for similar and suitable styles. We also looked for fonts for our main film title. This font would need to be bigger, bolder and maybe in a different, more simpler style to really focus the attention on the name.

Here are some fonts we though would work well:
Smaller Titles:

My favourites being '1942 Report' and 'Throw My Hands' as they follow typical font styles used in horror/thriller films and they are easily readable and clear enough to show the titles.

Main Title:

Out of these, my favourites being 'Stamp Act' and 'Narnia BLL' as these are clear to read and bold enough to stand out on a plain black background. Also they aren't suggesting any themes like 'Neocropsy' could be portrayed as showing a horror with lots of blood and killing. 

List of Titles

For our opening, we need to include opening credits and incorporate them into our film.  By coming up with a list now I can fit these into the storyboard i am drawing up and produce a more accurate vision of what our film opening will look like and I will be able to add in timings to see how it will all fit together. Opening credits are important for introduction the film to the audience and mentioning some of the more important names and roles behind the film and more importantly, to give the film title as well.
I looked through Wikipedia's page on Opening Credits to find out what the common opening credits are and the typical conventions of them. A lot of films have now started to follow the trend not to add in any opening credits but maybe just show the title. As my criteria for this project tells me to add in opening titles I think it would be best not to follow this trend but maybe add in only a few titles and not go overboard with it, still showing the main title at the end on the smaller titles.

The typical titles that appear that I am thinking of using for our film opening are:
'Name Of Studio' - In our case, we have made up a studio name, Ours is 'HMG'.
'A Film By...' - This would continue to show the directors names, Becky & Della.
'Starring' - We will show our actors names during the opening. Preferably when they are introduced in the split screen scene of our film. Will Steele & Alison Cowling.
'Directors' - Who the film has been produced and directed by - Becky Daniels & Della Helwig.
'Name Of Film' - Our film name is 'Foretold' and will appear at the end of our opening credits.

By only having 5 titles it shortens the title sequence so that it does not go on for too long. Also it keeps it short for the audience to remain interest and not get annoyed or bored of names appearing on the screen.  The five I have chosen are quite important in real films and are the basic main titles a film should have.

Titles & Fonts

Deadwood (2004-2006)

Although this TV series doesn't relate to the genre I am focusing on, I really like the 'typewriter' style font that they have used for the titles shown in the opening. I think that it could work really well for my own film opening as it looks simple and is easily readable but adds a bit of character to the opening as it isn't just any old font that you'd use everyday. Also, I have noticed that by choosing the colour white, it fits against pretty much any background which is useful as you know the audience will always be able to see it. I also like how the main title text is bigger and different to the smaller titles text. This makes it stand out and look more important and it's central position on the screen makes it the focal point. On the other hand, the previous titles are scattered around in various corners of the screen. This makes them visible to the viewer but also allows the viewers to have a focus on what is going on in the shot, something I should consider in my own film opening as well as all the other points I have mentioned.

Target Audience

The opening for our film must be directed at a specific target audience. As Becky and myself are both teenagers we thought that it would be easier to direct our opening to this sort of age range (teenagers and young adults). It would be easier to create characters and theme that are more relatable to the audience and create a narrative that they would be interested in. Two quite popular genres for our target audience would be Romance and Horror. For this reason, we have decided to combine the two together to create the hybrid genre 'Romantic Horror'. This appeals to both the male and female members of our target audience as the majority of girls like romance films and many boys like horrors. Also, because these two genres are quite popular separately, by merging them together it will create something new that will hopefully gain interest amongst our target audience and amongst both genders.


For this reason, myself and Becky have focused on looking at films that our target audience would be interested in, such as the Saw films, Final Destination, 500 Days of Summer etc as these examples give us ideas that follow the codes and conducts of what our target audience is interested in, which we can then apply to our own film opening.

Final Film Title & Tagline.

After coming up with a list of possible film names and tag lines, Becky asked around and got 14 people to tell us which they thought were the best. She mainly asked a number of teenagers and young adults as we think this would be our target audience if the film was actually produced. The choices were 'The Foretold', 'Foretold', 'The Foreboding' and 'Apparitions' for the Title of the film and for the tagline: 'There is no end, just a beginning' and 'The end is only the beginning'. We counted up the scored for each and 'Foretold' came out as being top with 7 votes, so this is our final film name and title which will be used in our opening.

'Foretold' - 7 Votes
'The Foretold' - 4 Votes
'The Foreboding' - 2 Votes
'Apparitions' - 1 Vote

Our final tagline has been decided as being 'The end is only the beginning' with 9 votes.

Foggy Weather

This week, the weather has been very foggy and it looked really spooky and haunting which would be perfect for our film's horror scenes. This made me think that I'd love to shoot our film in this sort of weather. Obviously, this is unpredictable and down to chance so this idea is just a variable that we could include if we're lucky enough to get fog like this when we begin to film.
Here are some photos I took on Friday:

 

Production Meeting Notes - 19/11/10

This week, me and Becky have chosen to focus on storyboarding our film opening so that we can visualise it better and plan out timings of each clip so we can fit everything we want into it. Also, we need to think of a list of the titles we will have appearing throughout and the font they will be in as well as choosing our final film name and tagline.

Music Research: Romance Scenes

Music for romance scenes needs to set a mood which tells the audience how the characters are feeling. Often during such scenes, the music played is either quite upbeat, happy pop music and in other cases the music is a lot more relaxed and formal like a piano or violin piece.
Since the music used for our film opening has to switch from this style of music to a horror style as previously researched we need to use a piece of music that will flow well with quick, sharp changes to clips of horror style music.

For this reason, I think it is best we use an instrumental piece such a piano or violin as this would mean when the clip is cut up it will flow better than a pop track where the lyrics will sound weird all over the place. Also it means that we can choose and pick out parts of the piece without worrying too much about how it will sound cut up. Another reason would be that it would fit the mood of the scene a lot better than something upbeat as the characters will be having a meal together, which in movies is usually accompanied by something like a piano piece. The piece we choose to use will have to set the mood as being a little uneasy due to the female character having visions but still fit around the romantic meal. The music for the getting ready scene needs to be a little more upbeat and give off a mood that suggests hopefulness of the night ahead or maybe vulnerability.
I focused on looking at the work of Ludovico Einaudi and these are some of the pieces that I found that we could possibly use:

Getting Ready: 'Vento Di Domani', 'Password', 'Primavera', 'In Un'altra Vita'.
Romantic Meal: 'Solo', 'I Giorni', 'Monday', 'I Due Fiumi', 'Rose'.

Actress

We have found our actress, Alison Cowling. She also has done Drama at GCSE and now doing A-Level, been in many productions and has been part of the National Youth Theatre this summer. She will play the lead female role in our film. We have talked her through our synopsis and a rough idea of what we want to do. We have given Alison and Will a rough date of when we plan to film and checked that they are actually free to do this for us. I am really looking forward to working with them as they are both very talented.

Possible Film Names

Many film names consist of just one or two words and a lot of them start with the word 'The'. This is because they are short and to the point and are also memorable. They often relate to the overall story of the film so the audience have a rough idea of what the film is about without having to look it up. We came up with a few possible names for our film but we made sure that these names had not be used for a previous real life film. 
I came up with 'Apparitions' as this word means 'The appearance of a ghostlike figure' which relates to our female character having her visions. 
Becky came up with 'Foretold', 'The Foretold' and 'The Foreboding' which relate to having future scenes at the beginning of the film as those words mean 'to predict'.
We also began to think about having a tagline. Becky came up with 'The end is just the beginning.' and 'There is no end, only a beginning.' However, if we use a tagline and which title we will use in the opening is yet undecided. 

Music Research: Horror Scenes

Music plays a very big part in films, especially horrors, to create an ideal atmosphere and to build tension and suspense. Watching a horror without the music often makes the film a lot less scary. Looking at horror scenes and films that open with this type of scene, they tend to have quite a tense and sinister atmosphere to them. Often, there are no lyrics in the music used as this would distract the audience away from what is happening. This may cause the film to be less scary or take away from the suspense. Therefore, I have focused my research for horror scenes on Score Soundtracks as these include only the instrumental music and have no lyrics to them.

One of the soundtracks I have looked at is the 'Saw 3D Score Soundtrack' by Charlie Clouser. This is a recent horror film (Halloween 2010) and the score has 30 tracks which showed me a good range of the music they used. It used a range of tempos depending on what was happening in the film. For our film opening, the first scene will be of the female character running away from something in a forest. This would require quite a distinctive beat and fast tempo but also it would have to maintain a spooky atmosphere.  Also, there are clips of her visions which wouldn't have to use a fast tempo but should keep a haunting atmosphere. I think that the following tracks (linked to the song) would be suitable if applied to our own film:

Running Scene: Track 4 - 'Chase Jill', Track 8 - 'Jill Dream', Track 15 - 'Strugglebeat', Track 28 - 'Roaster', Track 29 - 'Dr. Gordon Montage'.
Visions: Track 1 - 'Cauterize', Track 13 - 'Birdcage', Track 14 - 'News Bar', Track 18 - 'Quiet Nina', Track 26 - 'Fifty Cal'.

Production Meeting Notes - 12/11/10

Yesterday, me and Becky discussed a possible actress now that we have our male lead actor confirmed. Also, we thought that we should start to look into the types of music in similar genre film openings and find a few tracks that could work well for our film opening. Finally, we are starting to think of a good title for our film as this will be shown at the end of our film opening.

Possible Location

Fields behind Saffron Walden,

Along Newport Road

This is a location close to where I live. It is in Saffron Walden which is easily accessible. It is a short walk (5 minutes) down from the houses, across the field to the area with the stream and trees. This area has a defined walk way as it is a path people are able to walk their dog, making it easy for us to film there is there is not really any overgrowth or things blocking any access. There is also a stream which we can use for one of our scenes. It is about knee deep making this safe for the actors and there are also very shallow parts further on. This location is public and would not require us to ask for permission to film.

My partner for this project, Rebecca Daniels, has also found a possible location for us to use. She has blogged this on her own blog.

Split Screen

In my synopsis, I mentioned the idea of using a split screen to show what each character is doing at the time. This is an example from the film 500 Days Of Summer showing the character Tom's Expectations vs. Reality:

In our film opening, the split screen would be used to show each character getting ready, doing similar things at the same time to show a comparison.

Synopsis & Actor

After further discussion, Becky and I have agreed upon a final synopsis for our film opening. We have come to a conclusion by adding in ideas from our genre research and ideas we have had throughout the week before our lesson.

We would like to start our film off with a later scene; in the forest, perhaps, with the female running away or trying to find a way out to escape from something chasing her. This would include tracking/ panning shots with short close ups which would build up tension. This would then switch to a split screen of each character getting ready for their date later on. I will post an example of this sort of scene later. This could be broken up with short, sharp flashes of dark forest shots which could possible display some of the titles. If not, the titles would just go on through the split screen scene. It would then move onto a scene of them finally together having a romantic, candlelit dinner at the male characters home. They go to hold hands but as they touch the female character gets a vision into the future. This vision would be quite hazy and unclear. It would be of the forest again, maybe through her vision so the audience would be seeing what she sees. It would snap back to reality with her subtly shaking off what she just saw. She would look quite scared and confused. There would then be a shot of the male character walking the female home. He puts his arm around her and in that moment she would get another vision, this time much clearer. It is of him trying to drown and kill her. She is struggling to get away put the vision stops leaving on that cliffhanger. Back in reality, she tries to stay normal and the opening scene ends on a close up of them together with her looking worried and not knowing what to do. Finally, the title of the film, yet undecided, would appear, closing the opening scene.

Becky had the idea of having a time in the corner of each clip which would show time going by and the time between the reality scenes and the future scenes which would make the audience want to know what goes on in that space of time. I really like this idea and I think we have decided to use it. She also saw a film where some scenes were in black and white and some in colour. We think we may use this idea and have either the reality or the future scenes in monochrome and the other in colour, this is yet to be decided.

We have also found an actor, Will Steele, to play the male role in our film. He is doing Drama GCSE and has been in several productions. I have talked him through a rough idea of what our synopsis is and what would be involved. We have a few ideas on who to ask for our female actress but we will discuss this later on to decide and find out who would be willing and available to play this role in our film.

Genre Research 2

'Eden Lake' - 2008

This thriller film starts off with flashes of shots from later on in the film showing that the film will be a thriller/horror. The red text for the titles against the black background also suggests danger and darkness and the red could symbolise that blood will be shed however it is quite hard to read when watching it smaller. The flashes consist of close up shots merged with long shots but the close ups overpower and are more visible. This technique gives the audience a flavour of what the film will be like later on and makes them want to watch on from the beginning. It is quite similar to the previous film I researched, 'Shrooms', as they show parts of the film later on at the beginning which is something I would like to incorporate into my own film opening.

Genre Research 1

'Shrooms' - 2007

This is the opening 7 minutes to 'Shrooms', a horror/thriller film that is set in an Irish forest. As me and my partner Becky have decided that this is the genre we'd like to focus on and that a forest would be our main location I think looking at this film would be useful. The opening scene starts at the end with the girl running through the forest which makes the audience want to know what she is running from. Having an end or later scene first is an idea that I think could work well and something I may incorporate into my own. I like the blue tones used as it gives a chilling atmosphere from the start of the film. The built up whispers are interesting and add a build up of suspense which is then dropped by a sharp switch to the beginning of the film which has the complete opposite atmosphere. I like this and may choose to have end and beginning scenes next to each other.

Assessment Criteria

I have looked through the assessment criteria for the highest band of marks, a level 4, so that I know how to achieve these marks when it comes to making my own film opening. I applied each point to the Level 4 Video & Blog I looked at previously, so that I could see where marks were given and why. This is what I found:

1. Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate.

Shots used are very well framed, the character is always framed in the middle unless otherwise for effect. The right parts of the character are always in frame for the correct shot, for example their long shots show the full body whilst their close ups show just the shoulders and face which is correct.

2. Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate.

There are a a wide variety of shots used of various distances. They have used a walking room shot at 11 seconds in which is a very extreme long shot. They have also used a close up at 35 seconds in which shows quite a difference in distance.

3. Shooting material appropriate to the task set.

There is no material in the film which is unrelated to the film or the task they have been set which shows that they have not shot anything inappropriate or not included anything inappropriate to the task.

4. Selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting.

The props they have used relate to what they are shooting and make the locations more realistic and help to set the scene of the film. the colours used are quite high contrast and dark which make the audience better aware that this film will be a thriller. The settings are quite urban areas and this is kept throughout the clip. There are not many other actors in this clip which makes it clear on who the main characters of the film will be.

5. Manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including cropping and resizing.

They have manipulated photographs to create possible DVD covers for their film using a graphics editing program. They have also cropped and resized photos and screen shots so that they would fit appropriately and show only the relevant parts of that image onto their blog to present work they have done.

6. Accurately using language and register.

All spoken parts were well read and it is not hard to understand what they are saying, it is clear and pronounced correctly. I didn't have any trouble understanding parts or having to listen closely to make out what was being said.

7. Appropriately integrating illustration and text.

They have integrated illustration and text appropriately by including opening credits/titles and the title of the film. These are a good size and appear at good times throughout the clip. They are white with a red outline which makes them stand out from the clips and the backgrounds used making them easy to read.

8. Showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design.

This groups blog shows a good awareness of the conventions of layout and page design as blog posts are clearly presented in chronological order on the page. There is a title and header explaining what the blog is for and about and they have included who they are and what their role in the production was on the right hand side. There is also an archive of their posts at the side to get to posts quickly.

9. Showing awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size.

I can see an awareness of the need for varied fonts and text size as blog posts have a tiles and then text where the title is larger and bolder which lets readers know what they are writing about. For blog posts the font used is quite plain as it is not meant to be fancy. Whereas in the film clip the font used has been chosen appropriately for the opening. In the clip, the title of the film is much larger that the opening credits as it is more important.

10. Using ICT appropriately for the task set.

ICT has been used to edit the film by merging shots and cutting parts which they do not want or need. It has also been used to add in the titles and to edit the colouring of some shots e.g to black and white. They have used ICT to present their work in a blog on the internet and they have also used it to create possible DVD covers using a graphics editing program.

Production Meeting Notes - 5/11/10

Today, my partner Becky Daniels and I had our first production meeting. Today we began to discuss what we were going to do for our film opening and title sequence. In this meeting we started off by talking about what genre we wanted to focus on. This way we would have a direction for our ideas and synopsis. We then discussed good location ideas for our chosen genre. We came up with a few and settled on one main however thought we could incorporate another in some way. Then we thought up a basic synopsis in which we will discuss and add detail to for next week along with a few other task we set ourselves to do for the next couple of lessons.

Get Ahead OCR Media

We were shown the Get Ahead OCR Media website which shows us lots of past blogs both good and bad. By looking through this website I can see how previous students have or have not been successful and what makes a good blog. I could also see from this blog what quality of work I should be producing to get the level I am aiming for.

From this website I took at look at the Level 4 Video which came up as a link on the right hand side. From watching their final movie opening, I could see that their camera work and editing looked very professional and well put together with a range of different shots and editing techniques. It gave me ideas on how to show the different titles in a professional looking way. This movie had a pause in the middle where no titles were shown, just a clip of the film. I found this effective as it gave more focus on the film itself with no distractions. Also, although their main titles looked very simple, this gave a good and professional effect which looked like an actual real life film.

I also looked through their blog and found that this quality of work was maintained consistent throughout. The research and feedback they got was to a good standard and their story board drawings were detailed, I can see that they put in a lot of effort into them as it is not just stickmen. They used media terminology which shows that they know what they're talking about and doing and really understand what they have been asked to do.

Also on this website, I looked at the Level 1 Video Blog to see the difference between a level 1 and 4. From watching the film I could instantly see a big difference in the quality of work produced. The camera was very shaky and there were big contingency errors. The different shots didn't flow together very well, they just appeared one after the other. The music started after the film had started and instead of titles there were credits which are usually shown at the end of a film, not the end of the opening. These are all small errors I must try not to do when I make my own movie opening.

Looking though the whole blog, I see that the quality of the work does not match the standard of the level 4 blog. From seeing the storyboard, I can see that not a lot of effort has been put into it as the drawings are very quick and not very detailed with no or minimal annotation. However, I can see they have a clear understanding of all the different types of shots from the photographs shown and that they have done a bit of research to get ideas etc.

Juno Storyboard

This is a storyboard of the shots used in a clip (11:05-11:42) of the film Juno.
By doing this, it gave me a better understanding of how each shot is framed correctly and what effects a certain type of shot can have on the audience. For example, the high angle shots used make the character seem small and less powerful and less important than other characters and the audience themselves. The point of view shot helps the viewers to get a better understanding of what the character is feeling at that moment.