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Today I was able to check off the last task on my personal timetable, I feel extremely accomplished as I was able to complete all of my tasks. It seems like ages ago that I was writing this up. Having a personal timetable was useful, as it allowed me to keep on track of what I was supposed to be doing, it helped me to be organized, which meant we were able to complete our film in the time I had written on my timetable. I also made notes in my notebook through out this project, as well as my timetable on the computer, as it's easier for me to pull my notebook from my bag, as I can do that any time. It was particularly useful to make notes of all the things I wanted to get done during half term, as it helped make sure that I was ahead/on schedule so I didn't get stressed out about being behind.
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Today our film was finally completed! I have chosen to put this particular screenshot at the top here, as I think it is the most effective shot in our film, as it is very unnerving the way the hand reaches out, and her unexpected reaction.
I am first going to analyze whether or not our film fits into the genre of psychological horror. In terms of being set in a location that is typical of psychological horrors- yes our film works, as these events took place in the college. However, since the events in the film couldn't really happen to anyone, since it is about one girls bereavement, I'm not sure the audience will feel involved in the way they usually do with a psychological horror film. For example, in "The Blair Witch Project" it's set in a dark forest where a creature is hunting down the hikers; if a member of the audience had just watched this film and went into a forest in the dark, then they may feel unnerved as they could imagine that scenario happening to them in their head. However with our film, I don't think it's going to scare anyone as there weren't many "scary" parts to it. If we'd have had more time to do this project, then I think we should have worked harder on the scenes where the dead girl appears and then during editing we could have made her fade into the scene, or perhaps have made it into more of a jump scare to shock the audience and make them jump. While I don't think our film will necessarily scare the audience, it still has an unsettling atmosphere which I think has been achieved due to our muted colour scheme and also with the way how our actor Jasmine used unsettling facial expressions to make it look as though she was with someone. I think that also this atmosphere comes from the use of ambient sound when the dead girl is in shot, as it creates tension. The makeup of the girls is also very dramatic and unnatural which helps to show that something is off about the characters. A convention of psychological horrors is that the "killer" is very innocent and unsuspecting, and goes round causing pain and distress to others. In our film, our main character Mourning Girl was very innocent and odd, but she wasn't actually causing problems for other people, she was facing her problems herself. I think it is with our characters that our film moves more towards a drama, as in dramas the main character is sometimes going through some personal problems that other people aren't aware of. In our film, Mourning Girl is distraught over the death of her girlfriend, so creates an imaginary friend that no one else can see. Our film does slightly fit into the horror genre, but it also fits into the drama genre, which isn't what we intended to do. If we could have done this film again, I think we should have been more conscious of the conventions of the genre we were aiming for so that our film would have had the conventions in it. In the Brief, it was stated that the film we created must be 3 minutes long. I'm very pleased that our film managed to stick to this time limit. In total our film was 3 minutes and 24 seconds long, however the actual film is 3 minutes 2 seconds long, and the credits are 22 seconds long. Since our film fits in to the time frame that we had to stick to, you could say that our film was very successful. Our film starts with a medium shot of Natalie sat in an office with her school counselor, followed by a close up. It's really unfortunate that our opening scene is so out of focus, as the opening scene to a film is very important as it sets the tone for the film. In this first scene we used a range of camera angles as we wanted to experiment. There are lots of closeups so that you can see our character's expressions- especially "Natalie's" as we wanted to relay to the audience how nervous and jittery she was whilst talking to her counselor- as though she was feeling guilty for something. We also tried out a panning shot which goes from the counselor to Natalie to show the distance between them to exaggerate how uncomfortable Natalie was feeling. We also used a shot that panned down from "Natalie's" face to her hands which she was toying with uncomfortably. I felt that this was a really effective shot, as it is a natural reaction when someone is stressed/nervous. Another thing that we did for this first scene was prop placement, as before we went into the "office" it was very bare and didn't really look too much like an office. We borrowed a clipboard for the counselor so that they could look as though they were writing down everything that Natalie said. We also placed the sound recording equipment case on the table, as it looks sort of like a briefcase and therefore made our last minute actor look more official and older. Another "prop" that we used to help make our actor look older were our sound recordist Kira's glasses. We did unfortunately have some audio problems with this scene: it was just too quiet, and a little muffled. Perhaps we should have put as much time into making the audio nice and clear, as we did into putting the footage together into a film. Our next scene is introduced by a shot of Mourning Girl's feet, which I feel works quite well, as it creates an air of mystery as the audience will wonder who it is that they're going to see. For this particular shot, we wanted her to walk very slow and drag her feet as though she was putting off going somewhere. This shot is quite shaky and slightly out of focus, which is a shame, as it could have looked really good. I think that what should have been done, is the camera should have been on a tripod and then used the leaver on the tripod to move the camera in time with Mourning Girl's footsteps. This would have made it a lot smoother and more focused. The next shot after this is from behind Mourning Girl so that it builds tension, as this kind of shot usually suggests that someone/something is behind the character. In our case, it was Natalie coming to tease Mourning Girl. I thought that the audio of Natalie's voice was effective during this shot, as the audience will wonder who's voice it is calling her. We then changed to a medium close up of Mourning Girl on the stairs with Natalie behind her. The purpose of this shot was to have the two character's expressions in shot so that the audience could see how Mourning Girl's distress progressed. However, when we looked back at this scene we realized that Natalie's head had been cut off and we were worried that the scene wouldn't work- but, to our surprise it didn't really make much difference, as the main focus needed to be on how Mourning Girl reacted to Natalie's harsh words. I really liked the lighting in this shot, as it showed off Mourning Girl's drained and sickly looking face. I'm so pleased with how the makeup I did on her shows this so well, as I was initially worried that I had been too dramatic with it, but I needed to be a bit more dramatic with it so that it would show up on camera. I'm not very sure about the next shot we did, where Mourning Girl moves further down the stairs, as you can only see her face and Natalie's body which I don't think works very well as you can't really tell what's going on. I think that instead of this shot we could have done with a shot that showed Natalie's expression to show how worked up and angry she was getting- or perhaps she could have clenched her fists and we could have had a close up of that. I also think that a long shot of the stairs would also have worked well here, as it would have clearly shown the stand off between the two characters. The next shot of Mourning Girl running down the stairs is effective, as the audience gets to see just how much Natalie's words upset Mourning Girl. I think the way the camera follows her looks really nice. The only issue with this shot is that we did it the following day when we didn't have our actress for Natalie, and therefore she isn't in the background of this shot which is a bit of a continuity error. This shot is what gives the audience the first glimpse at Belle, I think that the scratchy ambient sound as she comes into shot is quite effective, as hopefully it will make the audience jump a little. I don't like the visual effect here, though as it is a bit too much, I think if it didn't have a filter on it, and it hadn't have been so fast so that the audience could have gotten a better look at Belle, then it would have been slightly more effective. However the shot is still effective, as it's unexpected. My favourite scene comes after, where Mourning Girl is sobbing hysterically under the stairs. The first shot of her is a bit too dark and I think that the filter over the footage is a bit too severe as it makes her look a little too scary and menacing. I don't think that this shot should have been altered, as it looked nicer before. However for the next shot where Belle's hand rests on her shoulder, the filter seems to work better, as the light changes due to the new position of the camera. This accidental change in light happens at exactly the right point- when the hand comes into shot. It allows the audience to see Mourning Girl's shocked, yet content expression as the hand caresses her cheek. The reason why I like this scene so much is because I just think it looks so nice- when I say nice I mean it looks very dark and sinister. I also think that the audio here works well because it is the same ambient sound effect as before that is unsettling and suggestive of something unnatural, due to the sound being so unnatural. The next scenes that follow are a sort of "montage" of clips where Mourning Girl appears to be alone and then we see a shot of how it appears to Mourning Girl. The same dark over dramatic filter is used for the shots where Belle is in the scene, for example, in the classroom where Belle is sat on the seat beside Mourning Girl. Although I don't like this filter, I understand why it was used, as it makes it more obvious that the scene is otherworldly. It makes this supernatural feeling clear to the audience to help exaggerate the fact that Belle is a ghostly apparition. Although I haven't been the biggest fan of the filters used on our film, I do really like the one that was used for the last shot where Belle appears behind Mourning Girl and put's her arms round her. It's a sort of glowing effect that gives off a melancholy yet blissful atmosphere as the two characters seem so close. It works well this shot being so dark, as although the audience can't clearly see their expressions- it's as though their feelings for each other are still hidden by the dark that separates them. To conclude my analysis of our film, I think that although our film hasn't entirely stuck to the conventions of it's genre it was still a success as it met the criteria on the brief. I'm actually really pleased with the film, as it was our first project- so obviously it isn't going to be as clean and polished as something we will create by the time we're on our last project. Although there are shaky and unfocused shots with some imperfect audio, our film still manages to clearly tell a story, and from the feedback that we received, it's good to know that the audience were able to easily follow the story line. When we were planning, we were having a hard time explaining our idea to our peers and tutors, and began to worry that our idea wouldn't come through clear in the final film. However to our great pleasure, it has, and all of that worrying was for nothing. I'm now really looking forward to all the other projects that we have, as this has helped to prove to us that even when things go wrong, such as actors dropping out last minute, we can still create a reasonably successful film. Today, we completed our film that we have been working on for the last few weeks. I shared it on my Facebook to get some feedback from my friends and family to see what they thought about it, as it's useful to get feedback from other people as they will pick up on things that you yourself haven't seen. I also have my own opinion on what I thought of our film and it will be interesting to see what other people think. I'm also hoping that some of the feedback will help me evaluate the film, as they may point out mistakes that I haven't seen. Here are the responses that I received on Facebook. All of these responses are what you'd expect off close friends, being very kind and being interested because they're getting to see what I do at college. However with the exception of Hanna's comment, they're not really very constructive, and don't really say what they liked or why they liked it. Hanna pointed out that she thought that the audio was a bit abrupt and I completely agree with her, the editing it a little bit choppy, maybe we could have faded the audio in and out, or cut it at a more suitable point. Since I didn't get the responses that I'd hoped for, I sent a message to my tutor and asked him for some feedback. He said he would e-mail me his feedback, so I'll post it once I get a response. I also asked a boy who is on year 2 for some feedback, as they were doing the same thing as us this time last year, so I thought it would be interesting to see what he had to say. Here is his response: Daniel also pointed out the issues with the audio. I think that more time should have been taken on the audio, as it is also quite quiet at the beginning, as I had to turn my volume onto full to hear it clearly. I mentioned in my post about editing about the camera being unfocused in parts, and Dan picked up on this too, and I agree with him here, as it could have been a lot smoother. At least we know for our next film to check the shots on the camera before packing up for the day. It was nice of him to pick up on the quirkiness of our story line, as we wanted to go out of our way to create something very different and unique. Where he says about Belle being well cast, I think he was referring to Mourning Girl who was played by Jasmine. Perhaps we should have made it clearer that the dead bloodied girl was Belle? Most of the feedback we have received has commented highly about Jasmine's performance. I sent an email to Sarah Irving who allowed us to film at the Civic Center, as I told her that once the film was finished I'd send her it so that she could see how we used the office. I'll post her response once I receive it.
Today, we began editing our film. Since we had a bigger group than all the others, Connor was assigned the roles of assistant director and editor. Although Connor had the role of editor, the rest of the group still sat in the edit suit to give their opinions and offer suggestions. The first thing we did was have a look over the footage. Unfortunately, we found that most of the shots from the Civic Centre were out of focus, and that one of the actors kept looking directly at the camera. There wasn't much we could do about this, as we wouldn't have been able to arrange another day at the Civic Centre, as our deadline is 9am on Monday. I think if we could go back in time, we should have checked the footage on the camera while we were there, or maybe just repeated some scenes to make sure we had lots of shots of it. Luckily, the parts where the actor is looking at the camera, Connor was able to cut to a different camera angle to disguise this.
Once Connor had finished putting together the first scene, we began to get worried, as this one scene alone was a minute long, however we can sort the length of the film out later once we have got all the scenes, it can then be cut down. The next scene that Connor edited was the scene on the stairs where Natalie and Mourning Girl are having their big fight. With this footage, we found that at a few moments the boom pole was in shot, Connor tried to crop the footage, but it didn't look right, so we're going to have to cut this footage up a lot, as the only shot we have without the boom pole is where our actress muddled up her lines and started laughing. This is fixable, it may not look the best, but at least we know for next time to keep checking whether the boom pole is visible, as I remember when we were filming this scene Kira was struggling to hold it, as she had to hold it so high up. We then moved on to the scene where Mourning Girl is crying hysterically under the stairs. We found with this scene that our directors feet are in shot, so Connor cropped it so that they weren't as visible. The feet were only visible in the very bottom corner of the shot, so it was easy enough to get rid of them. Watching the scenes of Jasmine reminded us of how good she was, because she's just so dramatic and the scene worked so well. After we had finished the scene with Mourning Girl under the stairs, we finished for the day. The following day (12th November) we finished editing our film. Our director Ethan and Editor Connor oversaw the editing today as I was helping another group with their film. Unfortunately I got back later than I thought and missed all the editing that was done today, however they did manage to complete the film, they weren't entirely happy with it, but our deadline is on Monday and none of us had Final Cut Pro 10 at home which meant we had to complete the film today as we couldn't do it over the weekend. However even though the film hasn't turned out how we wanted it to, I can still evaluate it and get some feedback. Another point that I'd just like to make is about how I expressed concerns in my previous post about how I didn't think the film would work without the ending on the script. However since we have now finished editing, I am able to see that even though we didn't have the scripted ending our film was still successful and managed to tell a clear story. Carlisle College - Morning Today, I arrived at college at 8:30 so that I'd have plenty of time to apply mine and Jasmine's makeup. It took longer than I thought it would to do the makeup today, however, this wasn't a problem, as it allowed the rest of the crew to begin setting up equipment. Here is a photo of what mine and Jasmine's makeup looked like today: The first scene that we shot today was scene 6, however we changed the scene slightly, as instead of having Mourning Girl walking down a corridor on her own, we thought it would be more effective to have her coming through a door and holding it open for her invisible friend to hint that something was very off with her. First we did the shots of Mourning Girl walking through the door alone. We watched some of this footage back to see how it had worked and decided that it hadn't quite worked having Belle open the door herself in the scene where there is a separate shot of Belle. So instead, we decided that the door should be held open, however there was an issue here as the door had a glass panel and you could see the person holding the door, so we used an umbrella to hook the door open. Here's some photos of this scene being filmed: The first camera angles we took of the above scenes were static long shots of the characters walking towards the camera. The reason for this was to show Mourning Girl's peculiar behavior as she holds the door open for no one and then before she goes off camera, we get a medium close up of her happy expression. After we had done the door shots, we then moved on to one where Belle comes up behind Mourning Girl and places her arms around her. I personally don't think this looked to great, as I'd never acted before and didn't really know what to do with myself, but I'm sure this can be sorted during editing next week. Once we had gotten all the shots we wanted of the hallway, we moved on to the same stairwell that we were in yesterday for continuity reasons. We were going to try and do the same shots we got yesterday but with Belle stood in the background and such. However, we were unable to get Emily (the actor from yesterday) in as she was having lessons. This wasn't too much of a problem, as we just did some additional shots of Mourning Girl rushing down the stairs and then had the camera pan round to Belle stood at the bottom glaring up at the stairs where Natalie had just been shouting. I took a recording of us filming this scene as I thought it would be interesting to have this on my blog, just to visually show how filming went rather than just writing about it. As time was getting on a bit, our director didn't think we'd have time to do the scene where Mourning Girl is sat alone in the canteen. It would have been nice to have had more time to do this scene, but we just didn't. So the final scene that we did was where Mourning Girl is sat in her classroom doing work when a ghostly Belle appears beside her. As our class isn't in on a Friday, we asked some of the second years to be extras and it worked really well. We also had all of our crew acting in the scene, as we can just add the audio during editing. Here are some photos of this scene being filmed: I think that we have now finished filming. Obviously, if our film could have been longer we would still be filming right now, as we kept getting ideas of all the things that we could add into the film. We are confident that we have more than enough footage to make our 3 minute film. I did however expect us to be filming the final climax scene where Belle whispers at the end "I love you", but our director for some reason decided that this scene was no longer needed, which was a bit disappointing, as I thought that this end scene would tie the film together nicely, I did try to persuade him to film it just in case they change their mind and also because it was in the script, but I guess directors have the final say with filming. Hopefully the film will still work out okay without this scene, because I don't know if we'll get chance to film it if they decide it was a mistake not to film it.
I think that perhaps if the majority of the crew hadn't left so early again, then we would really have had time to film this scene, as we had 45 minutes left and we just needed to film it in the hallway. However, I'm certain that something can be done with the footage that we do have to create an effective psychological horror. Civic Centre - Morning This morning I got to college at 8:30 so that I could print off all the scripts and other paperwork that was needed for the day. Once I'd gotten everything printed off, I went back over to the art building to meet my group and collect our equipment. We were running a little late, as we had had a talk with our tutors before hand, so I sent Ethan (our director) and Emily (one of our actresses) over to the Civic Centre as we had to meet Sarah at 9:45. I collected the equipment with Kira and Jemma and we brought it over to the Civic Centre where we met with the rest of our group. We had to sign in for health and safety reasons and were given visitor passes so that people knew that we were allowed to be there. Here is a photo of the visitor pass: Once we had been told where all the fire exits and such were, we were free to begin filming. We decided that the main room was a bit too big, so we went into the small "office" area to film instead. Here is a picture of the large room and of the office room. Our first task was to rearrange the tables, as there were two stacked on top of each other. The table was extremely heavy, so all of us grabbed a corner of it and lifted it together so that the weight was shared. It took us a little while, but we got it down and no one hurt themselves. As there were phone numbers written on a board, we positioned the camera and such so that it was facing away from the board, as we didn't want to wipe it just in case the information on there was important. Here are some pictures of how we set up the office. Just as we were about to start recording, we realized that the Tascam wasn't working properly. Our sound operator Kira tried adjusting settings and things but it just didn't work. We thought that we would give our tutor Ed a call, but unfortunately we didn't have his number. As time was getting on, we felt that it would be better for us just to go and take the sound equipment back to college to show Ed, as college was just 15 minutes away. When we got to college and found Ed, it turned out that the reason why the sound equipment didn't seem to be working was because the headphone volume was turned right down! However, we didn't see this as a waste of time, as if we hadn't of gone back to college we might not have figured it out for ourselves. When we returned to the Civic Centre, filming began. We had a few practice run through so that our actors could get into character. The first shot we began with was a long establishing shot to show the setting. We had borrowed a clipboard and placed the sound equipment briefcase on the table to make the scene feel more realistic. This also allowed Ethan to continue reading the script so that he could still direct while acting. We then did some close up shots of our actors so that you can see their expressions and lean a little bit about Emily's character. Besides from the issue with the sound equipment in the beginning, filming seemed to flow extremely well, it took us just over an hour to get the shots that we wanted, which is less time than we initially expected. We then packaged up all the equipment into its bags and went to have a break for lunch. Carlisle College - Afternoon Before we started filming, we had to do makeup, as our characters required it. Jasmine applied her foundation and did her base makeup, so that I could use my bruise wheel to create bags and such under her eyes to make her look ill and drained. Below are some pictures of us while we applied the makeup: As I was also acting in the film, I too had to wear theater makeup. However, I wasn't sure if we were going to have time to do all the scenes where my face is in shot, so I just did a really basic black eye and other bruises, as opposed to the bloodied makeup that I'll have to wear tomorrow. I did however have to make my hand look dead and injured, so I defined all the bones on my fingers and added some slashes, as my hand will appear on Mourning Girls shoulder and wipe away her tears. Below is a picture of my hand: Since we'd been getting ready in the mac lab which was just along from the stairwell where we planned to film, we figured that here would be a good scene to start with. The first scene that we decided to do was scene 3 where Mourning Girl is crying in the stairwell after having an argument with her friend Natalie. We gave Jasmine a script and said to her she could take her time to get into her character, however, as soon as she'd looked over it once, she immediately got into character and started crying hysterically, the whole crew were really taken aback with how talented she was, myself included as I've never gotten to see her act fully like that before. The only issue that we had with this scene was that Jasmine couldn't sit how that character does in the storyboard due to her skirt, however this wasn't a problem as the scene had lots of closeups anyways, so that solved the problem. It was a little awkward for the sound operator, as the stairwell was quite low and we had a fire exit on one side of us that we had to be careful not to block. Here are some pictures taken while this scene was being filmed: The next scene that we filmed was scene 2 which is where Mourning Girl is having an argument with her friend Natalie in the hallway. As we had just been filming under the stairs, we thought that it might work to have them arguing on the stairs, and then have Mourning Girl run down the stairs and hide. We had to take extra care when filming here, as we were on the stairs and had to be careful not to fall or drop any equipment down the stairs. I thought that the crew did extremely well with handling the equipment on the stairs. We first got some shots of Mourning Girl's feet as she approaches the stairs to add tension, as the audience won't have seen her yet and will be wondering who's feet they are. For this shot, our camera operator Jemma had to lie on the ground. We then moved on to the shot where Natalie is chasing after Mourning Girl and getting abusive with her. We took several different camera angles of this, so that when it is edited, we have plenty of angles to choose for so that we can see which works best. What was most challenging about filming on the stairs was the sound operator, as she had to hold the boom pole over the railing to be able to record Natalie and Mourning Girl, and holding this position for the length of time that she did was quite difficult for her, but she did manage and hopefully we'll have got some great recordings. The final scene we shot today was scene 4 which was in a classroom. We didn't want to cause too much disruption as we filmed it in our media classroom, so we just took an empty desk and filmed while everyone else got on with their work to make it look more realistic.
Overall, I think that we had a fairly successful day filming. We didn't get as many scenes recorded as I'd hoped we would, but I'd think that by tomorrow we should be done. Today we managed to get scenes 1, 2, 3 and 4 completed which is quite good going. Tomorrow, we'll just have scenes 5 and 6 to do and then the shots with Belle in the background and such. We had also considered cutting scene 5 if we don't have enough time, as we are worried about our film being too long, but we may film it, just in case we do have enough time to put it into the film. If we could have done today over again, I think we should have made sure that the Tascam was working properly before we left for the Civic Centre, as we wouldn't have lost 25 minutes of filming time. I think we could of also tried to have filmed for longer, because after we had completed scene 4, the crew seemed to disappear. I think we could have gotten scene 5 recorded if the rest of the crew hadn't left so early. Tomorrow morning is when we begin filming. As I don't have a printer at home, I will be printing off the paperwork tomorrow morning, as I usually get to college around 8:15, so that gives me pleanty of time between booking out the equiptment and getting to the Civic Centre for 9:45. Since our actor who was going to play Belle dropped out last minute, I offered to stand in for her, as it is way too short notice to get another actor now, and I won't be doing anything during filming besides making sure that everything is safe and all the cast and crew are okay. Since I am playing Belle, I will need to have some special effects makeup on me to make me look as though I have been injured. I'm really interested in special effects makeup and I would love to do something to do with it in the future. Coinsedentally, I had just bought myself some new special effects makeup such as Derma Wax and some new blood which I will be able to use on myself tomorrow. I thought it would be good to test it out before filming to see how easy it is to use and remove. Below is a small scratch that I created on my hand, it isn't very detailed as I was really just testing out the Derma Wax to see how effective it is. I also included a picture in the middle of the products that I used. It was a good job on my part testing the Derma Wax, as I found that it was extremely sticky and almost impossible to remove with hot soapy water. I decided to try some eyemakeup remover by chance as it was on my desk, and it took the wax right off and didn't leave any sticky residue. I will have to remember to bring this with me tomorrow, otherwise I will be covered in fake blood on my way home, and I'm not keen on the idea of walking through Carlisle to meet my dad looking so injured. I am currently moving all the paperwork on my hard drive onto a memory pen so that I can print it off in the LRC tomorrow morning. I am having to convert all the files into word documents which is taking quite a while.
I've also just received an email from Keith Poole (who put me in contact with Sarah Irving) saying good luck for tomorrow which was really nice: I recieved an email last night from Sarah Irving about the Civic Centre: This time change isn't a problem, as it is only 15 minutes earlier and will only affect the crew, as the actors aren't needed until around 10:15 as we should be set up and ready to film by then. We will also need to have a few practice runs so that our actors are ready and get comfortable in front of the camera.
Below is the risk assessment that I am sending to Sarah Irving at her request. Today, our group met with one of our tutors Darren to discuss our film and how we had gotten on with it and such. Below is the recording that I took during the discussion. Unfortunately my phone ran out of battery while recording, so the last few minutes of the recording are missing, however this isn't an issue, as we finished our discussion soon after my phone ran out. As I have now secured the locations, I have typed up our official shoot schedule based on hours that we are able to film at our locations, and also on when our actors are available. At the moment, I think it seems pretty achievable that we only need two days to film. However, if for some unforeseen reason we can't complete filming in two days, I'm sure we can fit some extra time in on Friday morning.
However, we encountered another problem after I had typed this up. Kira told us that she wasn't going to be in today (filming day) so that meant that I had to rearrange all the actors and such which was difficult, as one of the actors had gotten special permission to film today. Since Jasmine is an extremely close friend of mine, she agreed to come in on Friday (her day off) to film for us. Friday isn't an ideal day for me to film however, so I'll have to leave the shoot just before 12, but hopefully we should get most of the filming done on Friday, otherwise we will have to film some more next Tuesday, which means loosing time in post production. Below is our new final film schedule. Today at half 3, myself, Ethan and Connor met with Sarah Irving to go have a look at the rooms for filming in. The first room we looked in was exactly what we wanted: not too big and not to small with blinds and florescent lighting. However, we could only film there tomorrow morning and that was inconvenient for us, as it is too short notice to get our actors ready. A gentleman then came in and told us that there was another room available.
The next room was a lot bigger than what we wanted, however as it isn't in use anymore, we are allowed to rearrange the furniture and such to our liking. Since this room isn't in use anymore, we got to choose when we filmed there. We decided that Thursday morning would be best, so we need to meet Sarah in the reception at 10am on Thursday. Sarah also requested that I bring along a copy of the risk assessment. Since our locations are now sorted, I can complete our film schedule in full. As producer, it is my job to complete the paperwork for our production. Since I have now secured our first actress, I thought that I could start by writing the casting check list. A casting checklist is important so that we have a way of contacting our actors in a number of ways. It's important to have a range of ways to contact cast and crew, as it's very easy for someone to ignore a text or a Facebook message. Below, I have added the sheet that I have written for our first actress Jasmine. I have crossed out her contact details as this blog is public and I need to keep her details confidential. I am currently in the process of coming up with a shooting schedule. So far I only have an entry for Tuesday 3rd November, as we don't know whether we will be filming on Thursday 5th at the Civic Center. On Tuesday we're hoping to film the scenes that take place in the college. It looks like we will be filming quite a lot, but in reality most of the scenes are very short. For example, scene 3 is just of our main character crying in the stairwell on her own, and scene 4 is of her sat in a classroom. I think that doing this amount of scenes in one day is very achievable as they are all around the same location. I'll just need to get permission for our group to film over in the main building. I am also coming up with my own personal timetable for this coming week, as that is when production will begin.
For our film, we need 4 actors. I am very close friends with a girl named Jasmine who is on her final year of her performing arts course and she is an extremely talented actress. I met up with her on Sunday and she agreed to be in our film as the main character. She is free on Tuesday from 2:30pm onward, and on Thursday from 12pm onward. As she isn't required in the first scene anyways this will allow us to film the first scene in the office during the morning and then the scene with her in the afternoon. We need an actor to be our school counselor/therapist and therefore require someone who is over 25. There is an actor named Peter Macqueen who lives over the road from me, however, I want to secure a location first before I ask him, as it is an hour to drive to Carlisle from the village where I live. If we get the location secured then we can hopefully find a way to work around it. If Peter can't be in our film, we will have to ask a tutor or possibly someone's family member who lives in Carlisle for ease of access. Ethan sorted out a second actor, as he knew someone else who was also on the performing arts course. The girl that he has asked is going to be the second main character Belle. All that we need now is someone to play the minor roles of the counselor and of the girl speaking to the counselor in the first scene. The first scene is the scene that I am most worried about, as I don't know if we'll be able to sort out an actor over 30. Once I've sorted the locations and actors, I'll be able to create a shoot schedule. A shoot schedule is very important as it helps to keep everything organized so that we finish filming with plenty of time for editing and such. Group Conversations As it is half term, most of our group are busy or can't easily get to Carlisle, so we are conversing in a group chat to keep each other up to date with what is happening. While it isn't the most effective way of communicating due to people maybe not reading all the messages or missing them entirely, it is still better than not communicating at all. I am going to try and see if it will be possible for everyone to meet up for an hour or so on Friday, as we don't have to have a long meeting we just need to confirm that everyone knows what they're doing and what's happening when. I am hoping that by Friday I will have heard back from someone at my dad's office to confirm that we can film there. Below are some of the conversations that we have had. I have blocked out everyone's surnames for privacy reasons.
Since it is now half term, I thought that now would be a good chance for me to get in contact with places to get a location secured for our film. The majority of our film can be filmed at college (however when I go back to college I will have to get permission to film in the main building). Our first scene however needs to be filmed in an office. While college do have offices that would be suitable, I thought it would give us some good experience to film at a different location. My dad works for the Cumbria County Council and works in an office building, so I have sent him an email with my request, and he is going to forward it on to other people, so hopefully I should get a response soon. Below is a screenshot of the email that I sent. I will update this post later if/when I get a response. It won't be a problem if I don't get a response as we can easily film in one of the offices at college. Once I have secured the locations, I will be able to fill out the checklist that I created using the print out that I mentioned during my role research. Below is a screenshot of the list. Today, I received a call back from Carlisle City Council: (apologies for the audio quality, as I recorded off my phone with a microphone so there was static from the phone call) I gave Sarah a call back to further explain why we required an office location and such. She said that there are only fairly large meeting rooms that are available. I don't think this would be too much of a problem though, as we could just film part of the room. As for days to film, she said that the Thursday would be best for them. She has asked that on Monday we go down to the Civic Centre to have a look and see if it will be suitable or not. She said that she would like us to meet at 3:30pm. I will update after we have been. I sent an email to the man who put me in contact with Sarah Irving, as if he hadn't put me in contact with her, we wouldn't have had chance to film there, and I'm really grateful for his help.
Due to time restraints, we thought that instead of doing the first draft all together, we could each choose a scene from our plot and write a script for that part. We will then join all the parts together to make it into a complete script, and then we will make new drafts of it to improve it. I have never written a script in my life, so I thought that I had better look up some writing tutorials so that I could learn how to do it properly. I came across an extremely useful tutorial that was laid out in the style of a script, so I posted it into our group chat to help out anyone else who had never written a script before. Jemma and Kira both wrote up stories of the script. The one which Jemma wrote had lots of camera angles in it, which will be really helpful when it comes to creating the storyboard. I took both of the stories from Jemma and Kira and wrote them up into a script format. Below, I have added the first draft of the script, which I will print out tomorrow so that we can annotate it and create a second draft and a final draft of the script. I found it quite challenging to write the script, as I've never written one before. Obviously it isn't perfect, as it's the first draft, but I think I've gotten the layout mostly right. I printed the script out to show the group, and then I began annotating it for parts that I'd missed or parts that need improving. Below, I have added some photos of the annotated script pages After looking through all the corrections, I began to change the draft of the script on the computer. This didn't take too long, as the majority of the script just needed slight alterations, including Connor's surname added on to the front page of the script. Below, I have added the finished second (third official) draft of the script. I say third draft, as Jemma had written down the story with speech and camera angles, and I just wrote it up into a script format, so really we have 3 drafts now.
main character PROFILE (the girl who the production is about) Name: N/A Age: Late teens Gender: Female Sexuality: Homosexual Appearance: We want her to look very innocent and pure, so to reflect this, we want her to be very pale and plain. Need her to have blonde/white hair and wear white/ light coloured clothes so that she clearly stands out from everyone else. Background: She was keeping her relationship with her girlfriend Belle a secret, due to having very strict christian parents. She and her girlfriend were extremely close, but it broke her heart having to hide it. One day while Belle is trying to convince her to no longer keep their relationship a secret, she begins to step out onto the road, but Belle pushed her out the way and got hit by a speeding vehicle which lead to her death. Before Belle's death she was very happy and bubbly, but since her death, she's been very depressed and withdrawn The pictures below are for reference as to how we want our character to look, as you can see from these photos the girls are very pale and have blonde hair which gives off a very innocent vibe, particularly the girl on the right. deceased girlfriend's profile Name: Belle Age: Late teens Gender: Female Sexuality: Homosexual Appearance: We want this character to contrast heavily with the main character. So Belle will need to have black hair and wear lots of black. We also want Belle to be shown post accident, so she will have a very bloodied face and an amputated leg (Showing the character this way is to make it clear that our film is a horror film). Background: She was very much in love with the main character and kept their relationship secret by reason of her girlfriend not wanting her christian parents to know. Even though keeping their relationship secret pained her, it was worth it because her girlfriend loved her so dearly. One day, Belle decides to ask her girlfriend to tell her parents that they're dating. This upsets her and she wanders out into the road. Belle quickly notices the speeding vehicle approaching her girlfriend and pushes her out of the way. She sustains serious injuries and dies from them.
minor character profiles
Today we got together to further discuss the ideas that we came up with on Tuesday so that we can get a solid plot and begin work on a rough draft of the script. We thought that the idea about the girl having an "imaginary" friend would be a good idea, because we could evoke lots of emotions from the audience through that character. We also want it set in an everyday environment so that it follows the conventions of a psychological horror. This is the same reason for our main character being very plain and having a stereotypical "quiet girl" personality, as in most psychological horror films you see ordinary characters exerting horror on others. We came up with a basic plot for our film which has the beginning set in the school counselors office. We initially had the idea that it would be a therapist's office, but our tutor suggested that maybe that was a bit too far, because why would someone go see a therapist after just being concerned for a friend? So we changed it to a school counselor's office as almost every school has a counselor type person that students can go to when faced with troubles. We wanted this to be our first scene and then have Natalie (the girl in the scene who is speaking to the counselor about her friend) continue speaking in a voice over of scenes of her friend (unnamed) who is acting very strange like there is a cat beside her, when in reality, nothing is actually there. We thought that by having a voice over to tell the story it would make it more interesting as its being told from an outsiders perspective so that the audience are kept guessing and will probably have the same questions as the narrator. We also though it would make things clearer too in case the audience don't understand as our idea is quite complicated. For this reason, I think that when we start our storyboard it might be a good idea to do a video one. When the voice over begins, (unnamed) is going to be shown on her own wondering through college. Then Natalie will go up to her and yell at her and make her cry, because Natalie doesn't understand why (unnamed) is acting so strange. (unnamed) will then run off and sit in a corner on her own and appear to be talking to someone, but there is no one there. A ghostly hand will then appear on her shoulder and she will smile. She will then reach her arm out as though she is trying to grasp something. At this point the film will reveal a scene where (unnamed)'s girlfriend Belle saves (unnamed) from being hit by a speeding vehicle, and Belle is killed in the process. The scenes of (unnamed) walking around on her own will then be shown again, but instead of her being alone there is a very mutilated girl walking along beside her holding her hand and such, and it is at this point that the audience will realizse that (unnamed) is not crazy she is just trying to deal with the loss of her girlfriend who she had to keep a secret. We thought that during the scene where we suggest that (unnamed) is not alone, when the ghostly hand appears, that instead of having it appear on her shoulder we could have it appear on her waist so the gesture is more intimate. We could even have a lipstick mark appear on her cheek at this point too. We're going to get together on Monday and try to come up with a basic draft for a script. I found a really useful tutorial on script writing, which will help those of us who, like me, have never written a script before.
After deciding that we want to do a psychological horror film, I thought it would be helpful to research the conventions of this genre so that I understand it better so that the genre is clear from our film. We will need to include some of the basic conventions in our film to relay to our audience that the genre of our film is psychological horror. Psychological horror films are scary due to their focus on daily life, so the events in the film could happen to any of the audience. This makes the audience feel on edge. Usually at the start of the film the words "based on a true story" are shown. This is usually due to the film being based on "factual occurrences in real life", so by this it's based on something that could very easily happen to anyone. Usually psychological horrors are all set in the same few locations: a big house, woodland areas, warehouses, schools or some kind of hospital. It is these casual settings which make the audience feel so afraid because they have easy access to these locations on a regular basis. For me personally, I always find films creepiest when they are set in a normal house, as I just live in a house, so the horrible events that occur could happen to me. In a psychological horror, the killer is usually a very unsuspecting person who seems very innocent. Often in these films, child killers are popular as children are often seen as being very pure and innocent. A very successful (in my opinion anyways) psychological horror that has a young child as the killer is 'Orphan' as at the beginning of the film she seems really sweet and after having such a troubled background you feel sorry for her - until she starts killing people. It is the idea of such an "ordianry" person exerting pain and horror on someone else that makes psychological horrors so chilling, because everyday we are surrounded by people unaware of their intentions. There are a lot more haunting visual moments in this genre as opposed to a slasher which just has lots of violence and gore. There are a lot more jump scares and such in this genre as it is playing tricks on the audience and wanting to get under their skin. My final point on this genre is about the colour palette. They're very washed out and don't use any bright colours at all (except for perhaps the blood in some films). The way that all the characters are dressed are generally in very dull neutral colours, however it may just look this way due to how it has been edited. Above I took some screenshots from the films: The Ring, Orphan and Insidious and used the colour picker on my drawing software to create a colour palette for each scene. As you can see the colours are very similar, each screenshot has a predominant shade, so in the middle one it is brown and then in the bottom and top ones it is a greenish blue. This greenish blue colour is very common as it is quite sickly and makes everything seem abnormal and surreal. Below, I have added a really interesting flow chart on how to make a horror film as I thought that this linked in well as I am writing about the conventions of a horror film. Sources:
http://richardoalevel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/codes-conventions-of-psychological.html http://www.slideshare.net/ievaasnina/psychological-horror-research http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2011/canal-plus-film-making-flow-charts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+tirdaily+%28The+Inspiration+Room%29 Today, we were given our briefs for our projects and were put into groups of four based on what production role we wanted to do. I was happy to do any role, as I'm unsure of what I want to do for a career, so I thought it would be good to get a range of experience doing different roles. In the end I got chosen for producer in our group. Our brief was to create a 3 minute long film from a genre of our choice. Our first challenge was to decide what genre we wanted to do. We jotted down a few ideas: horror, action, sci-fi and fantasy. We decided that a sci-fi film might be a bit too difficult to make, as we thought you really needed lots of special effects. We felt that maybe something along the lines of a psychological horror would be best due to the materials/locations we all have access to. Once we had settled on a horror film, the ideas started flowing. Our initial idea was Creepypastas, as they are normally very creepy and very thought evoking. We're going to go away and all research different Creepypastas to try and give us some more inspiration. We also thought that maybe something about grief or loneliness would be a good idea, as it would have an emotional effect on the audience as well as scaring them. One idea that we had was about a character who's lost someone close to them, but it is unknown to everyone else as the person they lost was kept a secret. For this idea we would only need maybe two actors, which Kira and I both have access to due to having friend's in the performing arts class, and I also live across the road from an actor who does lots of acting for my local theater: The Theater By The Lake. Another idea that we had was a zombie film. However we are going to write a detailed plot/story for each idea. We also needed to think about locations to film our horror film, as I am the only one in our group who doesn't live in Carlisle, it was decided that we do our filming in Carlisle as the majority of our group live there. As one of our ideas was about a school girl, we thought that maybe filming at college would be good: we could film in the canteen out of hours so that it's empty so it looks like the character is eating alone. We could also go into the main building in an empty classroom, as the rooms in the art building don't really have a school-like feel. We thought that maybe a church would be good, or a forest. Below I have attached the word documents that were written based on our initial ideas. The first one is for the zombie film idea, and then the second one is for the horror film about grief. I have also put a photo of the notes that we took during our first meeting. |
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