Changes

At the beginning of this course, I was paired up with someone but not too long into it, my partner had decided to drop out. Since he decided to do it quite early on in the lessons, it was quite fortunate because we hadn't done an awful lot of work by then. When we were still working together, we decided to do an opening sequence to a horror film. After he had dropped out, I decided to stick to the idea of an opening sequence to a horror film, thought I've changed the plot and the overall film idea.

Through most of the time during the course, I have been working on my own. Having gotten all the roles to myself, I thought of it as an advantage rather than something unfortunate. This way I had way more control over what I really wanted to do in my film, and I got to make all the choices.

I got my idea together, got my actors and had everything ready, but I realised this is a lot of work to be doing alone. My main actress, When I went to get a tape for my camera from my teacher, we told him we're both working on our own, and he suggested we pair up and do a film together instead. That seemed like a great idea, as we both needed another person to rely on, and we have already worked on a media project together before, in secondary school, so we knew it would work.

Sara, my new partner, already liked my film idea, so we decided to stick with that, not really making many changes to it. We split up the roles between us, me ending up being the producer and camerawoman, and her being director and editor.

Weeks 9, 10, 11 & 12

- progress of filming
- use of equipment
- what's going well?
- problems encountered
- schedule? on task? re-shooting?
- other relevant points

So far in our filming, things have been going good. We have chosen a final idea, our actresses and locations. For out film, we needed certain props, like a knife and a mask. Since in this project we are not allowed to use a real knife, we had to go out and search for a plastic, yet realistic looking knife, which we found in a costume shop. For our film we would also need blood. We decided to get a little creative with that, and instead of buying fake blood, we looked up recipes for fake blood online, bought the ingredients and decided to make it ourselves. We spent one day on all of this, putting us a little behind schedule as we were already supposed to start shooting that day, but it got too dark.

We decided to shoot the next day instead. When we started shooting, we had to think about which parts of the film we were going to shoot first, though knowing it didn't really matter since our whole film takes place in just one location. Since, when we started filming it was starting to get too dark already, we decided to shoot the parts inside the house first, and leave the shots from outside for another day.

We had a camera and tripad we had taken out of our college for the weekend. We were quite familiar with how a camera works, having done media before in secondary school and having to shoot a music video then. We got everything together and started planning out our shots, double checking to see which angles would work better for each scene. We had some trouble with the main actress getting serious for the role at first, but once she got herself together, it all went acording to plan.

The only real problem we have encountered so far, is time. We're finding it hard to find a good time to shoot, as we need it to be dark outside, but not dark enough for the camera to not be able to pick anything up. We seemed to have settled for 4 o'clock, but at that time it gets dark really quickly, so we always seem to miss the ideal time to shoot.

Weeks 7 & 8

Storyboard

Part 1

Storyboard

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Part 2

Storyboard (2)

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Weeks 5 & 6

Comparing texts

One of the examples I have studied for my coursework research is Scream. It is the main case study for my research, as I will be using it as an inspiration for my own movie. The genre of Scream is horror, as will be the genre of my product. The narrative of it, though it seems pretty simply, makes the audience think. Most people when thinking of the film, will see a masked killer trying to get to a girl. However, when you pay more attention to it, it becomes more than that. The narrative makes the audience think. It makes them want to figure out who the killer is, and what their motive might be for trying to get to this girl, killing many people along the way. The fact that there seem to be many suspects only makes the movie more interesting, as the audience seems to be even more eager to try and figure out the mysterious killer. The representation also seems to be quite simple – almost predictable. The main victim is a girl – this is quite common in most horror films. Women are usually portrayed as the weaker sex; the ones that get attacked and have to try and protect themselves from incoming danger. Overall, even though the movie might seem a bit predictable, it keeps the audience on edge throughout. Every step along the way, something new happens that makes the audience re-think their previous conclusion as to who the killer may be.

The second film I have studied for my coursework research is The Strangers. The genre of this film is also horror, and it seems, in context, pretty similar to Scream. The reason I have chosen texts that are quite similar to each other, is because I have a fixed idea of what I want to do for my product. The story in The Strangers is also about mask killers, although the circumstances are a bit different. A couple is at a summer house and is attacked by a group of three masked killers. The film itself doesn’t seem to have much of a plot, as it is just about the three people trying to kill the couple – there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason for why they are doing it – except the fact that ‘they were home.’ The representation in this film challenges the one in Scream as in here, two out of the three murderers are women, and one person in the couple is a male. This shows that it doesn’t always have to be just a woman victim, and that the murdered doesn’t always have to be a man, either. This film also keeps the audience on edge, but in a different way. It does still keep them guessing on who the killers actually are, and if there is a reason for why they’re doing what they’re doing, but also, in The Strangers, there are many moments which make the audience react – scream, jump, etc. 

Week 4

This week, we were given a 'practice' storyboard, for which we had to go out and shoot pictures.

'P' is for Psycho storyboard:

I think the process of doing this practice storyboard was ver effective, because it made me realise that sometimes you might not get all the props you need and you'd have to improvise. Also, it made me realise how to take certain shots to make sure they're the best for the scene.

Week 3

·         what is the storyboard and how is it used?

·         how will you create your own photo-storyboard? (power point/still photographs)

·         what is scripting? find examples of a script format and begin your own.

- A storyboard is a number of still shot photographs done in an order of how someone wants their movie to come out. It is a piece of work people follow when creating a film - a guideline, so to speak. A storyboard is kind of like a comic strip, showing what is going to happen in the film without the film actually being made yet.

- I will create my own photo-storyboard by taking still photographs of certain scenes in my film and i will put them together in a powerpoint presentation. I will include shot lengths, transitions, any edits, voiceovers, etc.

- Scripting is when you put your storyboard into words - instructions, per se. It's what's given to actors before a film; it includes stage directions, locations and what they're supposed to say. A short example of a script:

Week 2

Analysing similar texts.

• Scream

The genre of Scream is horror. The film is about a mysterious masked killer, making his way through different people throughout the film.

The opening of the film is a the name of the film production, Dimension Films. The next screen is of the name of the film. As this shows, the sound in the background is that of a phone ringing, follwed by a scream getting louder. This sets the mood; the scream in the background just confirming the name of the film and letting thw audience know that they may scream watching, just as the victims in the movie as screaming.

The actual scene begins with a close up of a phone – showing that that is how the murderer communicated with his victims. It establishes that the murder happens at the victim’s home. The mise-en-scene of the whole opening sequence of this film is the victims house.

As for the sound in this opening sequence, the most common one is the sound of the telephone ringing, as the victim hangs up on the killer numerous times before she actually starts listening to him. The voice of the killer can be heard over the phone and it is easy to recognise that the voice is changed using a machine, so that the victim can't tell who she is speaking with. When the victim actually starts getting suspicious of the person calling her, a dog barking outside can be heard, indicating that someone might be out there. Also, around this time, soft psychotic music can be heard. From this point on, the music is almost constant throughout the opening sequence, getting higher pitched and louder when something is happening.

The editing in this film is quite simple as it is mostly a follow of straight cuts. No special effects are added and no other special editing was used.

The opening sequence of this film uses a number of close up shots and medium shots - these are the two most common ones in this film.

One or two establishing shots can be seen, too, but they're not used at the beginning of the film like it is normally used. They are shown in the middle of the opening sequence, as to show that the house is a big one, and that there don't seem to be people around that could help her if something were to happen to her. Also, this shot shows the tree from which the victim will later be hung.

• The Basement

• running scared

Analyse the following in your blog: genre, narrative, camera, sound, script, editing, mise-en-scene