19 December 2013

Indivdual Storyboard - Miss Miller

The purpose of a storyboard is to illustrate how we each envision the opening sequence of our thriller film. Storyboards will help us in our current planning stage as we will each express our own ideas of what we think the opening sequence should look like. This means that everyone involved in the creative process of a film can express their individual ideas before a finalised storyboard is produced. In turn, this means the film will include only the favoured elements, as crew members would have decided, after the initial individual storyboards are made, on what features to include in the film.

We have each created an individual storyboard because it is important that we illustrate what we would like to include in our opening scene. Each member of the group will have good points and bad points in their storyboard. After we have created our individual storyboards, we will combine all of our best ideas to create our final group storyboard. This allows for the best possible group storyboard.

I feel that my opening sequence idea portrays influences from films such as Saw, as the killer has a backstory/reason for the killings, and there are dark and mysterious locations involved. It may even be noted that there is inspiration taken from Psycho, as no actual stabbing/violence is shown on screen. Inspiration has been loosely taken from Orphan, as the opening scene/narrative has the idea of not always knowing what a person is capable of. Furthermore, Orphan has a female killer and so does this film. This film's killer has a hidden identity, which is something that most thriller films have in common.

I think my storyboard is a moderately good illustration of what I would like to see in my thriller opening scene. It may help my group in this storyboard process as I may have ideas that they like and want to include in the finished product. Although I conveyed my ideas in these storyboards, I feel as if I should have included more frames. This is something my group and I will consider when creating our group storyboard.ž

Storyboard page 1

Storyboard page 2

Storyboard page 3
When planning my storyboard, I encountered an issue. I found it relatively difficult to convey my ideas into set frames. To overcome this, I thought carefully about everything that I wanted to include in the film, and converted them into the storyboard(s) above.

18 December 2013

Rough Cut - Miss Miller

Group members: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Jazz Chrystie, Lily Badcock

Watch our rough cut here.

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It was important for us to make a rough cut before finalising our opening sequence as we needed feedback so we could make our thriller sequence as good as possible. Also, myself and my group members watched the rough cut and pointed out mistakes, so now we can make improvements ready for our final cut of the sequence. Rough cuts help reveal any editing mistakes, sounds that need changing, music that needs to be added in, shots that need re-filming, etc.

It is imperative that we consider audience feedback as it is critical that we get our film up to the highest possible standard. The feedback that we received from our rough cut was given by an audience of our target audience's age, which means that it is highly relevant to our film. We must make changes and improvements to our film according to the feedback that we received. Furthermore, the audience may have discovered a mistake or bad-quality part of the sequence that myself and my group may have overlooked (possibly due to bias, as this is our film and we want it to be good).
We received our feedback by uploading our rough cut of 'Eternal' to YouTube, creating a PowerPoint presentation discussing our narrative, inspirations and conventions and showing both of these things to our peers (aged 16-17). We received positive and negative feedback and many possible improvements to make on our thriller film. We must make the following improvements: add more music and make the sound/sound effects more relevant to each shot; include more credits and change the font of some of them; re-film some of the shots that are towards the end of the sequence; and generally 'touch up' our thriller sequence. This helps us immensely with finalising our thriller sequence as we now know exactly what can be/needs to be improved, and we will do this as thoroughly as time allows.

Group Narrative and Narrative Theory - Miss Georgiou

Group: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Lily Badcock, Jazz Chrystie.

Group Narrative

A narrative is the way in which a story is told within media texts. The purpose of a narrative is to tell a story to an audience through written/spoken words or in a sequence of moving pictures. This post will discuss the narrative of my group's future opening scene of a thriller film.

My group showed each other our 'individual ideas for a narrative' posts. We discussed which aspects of our narratives that we all did or didn't like, and combined all of our good ideas into our group narrative.

Group member 1: Lily Badcock [read narrative here]

Lily's narrative involved a damaged man who was abused in his childhood. He blames the whole world for what happened to him. He was a burns victim, therefore fire is a theme throughout, as the man burns his victims. The opening sequence would involve a montage of childhood images, overlayed with footage relating to fire and smoke. The killer uses a mask to cover up his burns and also hide his identity.

 A good point about Lily's narrative idea is the originality behind it. However it is still quite conventional, as many horror/thriller films involve a killer with a terrible childhood/backstory who blames everyone else for his past and who targets innocent people (this is also seen in Saw). However, a disadvantage of this narrative is that it is quite difficult to film because we cannot realistically burn people/buildings.

Group member 2: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson [read my narrative here]
 
A summary of my narrative would be that a woman's fiance leaves her at the altar, and her mental state deteriorates and she kills him for revenge. The opening sequence includes her in a dark, basement-like atmosphere flipping through a photo album of everyone who was invited to the wedding [then a flashback to the wedding], and landing on her ex-fiance's face and crossing it out. Flashbacks to killing him and his family.

An advantage of my idea for a narrative again is the originality of the plot. Also, the creepy atmosphere would build suspense, keeping up with the conventions of a thriller. A bad point of the plot is that there isn't anything that the scene is building up to because we know the ex-fiance is already dead/been killed by the woman. An improvement could be that we see that she has already killed his family, and she is preparing to kill him. Then, the scene could cut to show her standing outside his house, watching him. This would build a lot of tension and frighten the audience because they know what is coming next, but don't know when.
 
Group member 3: Jazz Chrystie [read narrative here]

To summarise Jazz's narrative, his idea is about a man who is obsessed with insects and uses them to kill his victims. He is tall, angry and 'dominant' and his victims are usually attractive females. The opening sequence involves many bodies in a room that contains many dead bodies with insects crawling all over them. The scene would have low key lighting, and eerie sounds such as dripping water to be heard, to emphasize the quietness of the room. The killer will drag in many dead bodies throughout the scene. The opening scene will also keep cutting to investigators trying to find the serial killer. Blood and insects will be a motif throughout the scene.

A good point about this narrative is that there are many conventions, such as a male killer and vulnerable female victims. However, the scene would be almost impossible to film as we would need many dangerous insects for the scene to make sense. Furthermore, the scene is not building up to anything and therefore lacks the elements of surprise and shock.
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My group has decided to create a thriller film for my narrative. However, we are changing the plot slightly. The opening sequence will now show a room covered in wedding decorations, invitations, flowers etc. and a woman crying on a bed. The woman, whose ex-fiancé left her at the altar, is wearing a wedding dress and sitting on the bed in the room, surrounded by the wedding decorations. A flashback will then be shown of her and her best friend/maid of honour getting ready for the wedding, and there will be a generally positive atmosphere in the flashback. However, the next frames will be of present-time 'bride' writing on the wedding balloons, crossing out "together forever" and writing "RIP". She then has a flashback, seen in wedding-video style, of her [now ex-]fiancé getting ready for the wedding with his best friends. The scene then goes back to the 'bride', who then looks through a photo album of everyone at the wedding that she knows. She has written various things across the several photos. She is then shown crossing out one of the best friends, previously seen in the 'groom's flashback, and the scene cuts to her walking behind him holding a knife, implying that she's killed him and this is a flashback. This then repeats with the other two men. Then, she circles the 'groom's face, and the scene cuts to the 'groom' with his new girlfriend, the best friend of the 'bride', and he goes upstairs to the bathroom. As he walks out, the 'bride' is there with a knife, waiting to kill him.

We decided on this narrative as it both challenges thriller conventions (stereotypical genders of killer and victim are swapped) and includes them (shock, surprise and suspense). We also thought that the plot was interesting and different, which would draw the audience in. It may also receive a higher female audience as it does not include a stereotypical/conventional blonde female as the victim. Our narrative was inspired by films such as Orphan and Saw, which are both very popular thriller/horror films. Orphan inspired our film due to having an unexpected and female killer. Saw inspired our film with its unique plot, and killer with a backstory. Scream also inspired our film as it includes a conventional, classic weapon - the knife. We have tried to incorporate all of these things into our thriller opening sequence.

Narrative Theory

There are 3 main narrative theories: Vladimir Propp, Tzvetan Todorov and Erving Goffman.

Vladimir Propp (1895 - 1970) was a Russian literary critic and scholar. He analysed over 100 Russian fairytales in the 1920s, and proposed that there were 7 broad character types in the tales that he analysed, which could be applied to other media.
These were:
  1. The donor (prepares the hero, #2, or provides the hero with some sort of magical object)
  2. The hero (reacts to the donor, #1, usually weds the princess, #4, winner)
  3. The villain (opposes and struggles against the hero)
  4. The princess (person the hero marries, usually sought for during the narrative)
  5. The [magical] helper (helps the hero in the quest)
  6. The false hero (believed to be a good character in the beginning but is revealed as evil)
  7. The dispatcher (sends the hero on his way)
The model highlights similarities between seemingly different narratives and stories. It also gives a good structure for a narrative. Some films' narratives fit this model, whereas others' do not.

Tzvetab Todorov is a Franco-Bulgarian literary theorist. He suggests that most narratives start with a state of equilibrium, wherein everything seems 'normal' and happy. He proposed these stages of narratves:
  1. A state of equilibrium
  2. A disruption
  3. A recognition of disruption
  4. An attempt to repair disruption
  5. A restoration of equilibrium
This model can be correctly applied to a wide range of films.

Erving Goffman proposed a character theory which suggests that there are four main types of broad character in a media text/production.
These are:
  • The protagonist (the leading character)
  • The deuteragonist (the secondary character)
  • The bit player (a minor character, the audience is not aware of their specific background)
  • The fool (a character that uses humor to convey messages)
Our narrative will most closely follow the narrative theory proposed by Erving Goffman. The protagonist of the film is the unnamed 'bride'/killer. The deuteragonist is Hayden, the 'groom'/ex-fiancé/victim. The bit player is the maid of honour/bride's best friend. She is unnamed and her story isn't quite known. The fool(s) are the 'groom's friends. We chose this narrative theory to follow as it most closely applies to the film industry. Vladimir Propp's narrative theory is most suited to fairy tales, and there is not enough time in the opening sequence to accurately follow every step of Todorov's narrative theory.

16 December 2013

Opening Scene Narration - Miss Miller

Group members: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Lily Badcock and Jazz Chrystie.

Our thriller opening's narrative starts with showing a room full of wedding decorations, apparently ruined. This connotes a ruined wedding or a failed marriage. The camera pans to a woman sitting on a bed in a wedding dress wearing a veil; she has smudged make-up. This implies that she has been crying, and has gone 'crazy'. This then further implies that she is upset/crazy due to the failed wedding. She has many flashbacks to the wedding, which are in wedding video-style format. She thinks about when she was getting ready for the wedding with her best friend and bridesmaid, and also thinks about when she first saw the footage of her [ex-]fiancé getting ready for the wedding with his friends - his best man and ushers. The 'bride' also writes on the wedding balloons; she crosses out 'together forever' and writes "RIP". The 'bride' then looks through a wedding photo album. She eventually gets to two pages where two men, previously seen in the ex-fiancé flashback, are crossed out in marker pen. The woman then has two flashbacks, of killing these men. The camera then shows a photo of the ex-fiancé with a ring around him in marker pen, and the audience infers that she'll kill him next. The scene then cuts to the ex-fiancé and the 'bride's best friend sitting on the sofa, implying that they're a couple now. The ex-fiancé goes upstairs to the bathroom, and when he leaves, the 'bride' is standing there with a knife.

The iconography throughout the opening sequence will help to enhance the intense and frightening atmosphere, such as the knife that the 'bride' is seen with a few times. This tells the audience that the 'bride' is a killer, and the first scene/shot where she is holding the knife is very intense. Also, the iconography will help tell the story and make it more realistic. For instance, the audience will realise that there is a theme of weddings through the wedding decorations and wedding photo album. This makes the story more believable, because we know that the 'bride' is obsessed with the wedding that didn't happen. It is conventional for thriller films to include killers that are obsessed with one specific life event to the extent of homicide.

There are a few different settings in our thriller opening sequence. The main setting in which the woman sits during most of the opening sequence is dark and seemingly isolated. This represents her dark personality, and isolation from society and 'normal' behaviour. Dark and isolated settings are also conventional to thrillers, helping to increase our thriller film's conventionality, due to how they enhance frightening and intense atmospheres as the audience can't really see all what is going on. This then adds more shock to any shocking scenes that may come afterwards. Furthermore, the settings in which the groom's friends are killed are either domestic or outside at night. These are both conventional for different reasons. Domestic settings are conventional because they give both the character and the audience a false sense of security. Settings outside at night connote danger and mystery, adding to the enigma of the narrative. Both of these settings build up the relationship between the audience and the character, because the audience fears for the character(s).

Lastly, the costume and make-up for the main character, the 'bride'/killer, helps the story to flow better. The smudged make-up implies and foreshadows her unhealthy mental state and strong negative emotions (sadness and anger) towards the wedding and wedding decorations. The wedding dress that she is wearing further enhances this effect, because the audience then gets a vague sense of the narrative of the opening sequence/film. It is conventional for costume and make-up to connote, even vaguely, some ideas of plot and narrative.

The sound in the first frame, the panning shot of the room, is a small section on a eerie musical piece. The piece was credited in the credits to the film. The second, third and fourth frames are flashbacks. They are handheld shots of the bride and her maid of honour/best friend getting ready for the wedding. The maid of honour is straightening her hair, the bride shows the wedding balloons, and they look in the mirror together. The shots are made to look like a home wedding video due to an effect added in editing, where the screen shows a 'rec' button and a frame. In turn, the audience understands that the bride is recording the wedding video. Also, the sound in the second, third and fourth frames is all the same, happy and upbeat song. This contrasts with the previous soundtrack, and the upcoming scenes and sounds. The sound could also be considered contrapuntal as it is very upbeat, and thrillers conventionally do not include upbeat music unless it is necessary or relevant. The next frame is of the bride picking up one of the wedding balloons - it is a mid shot. The sound has reverted back to reflecting the eerie sounds that were in the opening of the film. The following shot shows a close up of the 'bride' crossing out the "together forever" that is written on the balloon. The frame after is again a mid shot of the 'bride' writing "RIP" on the balloon and turning it around slowly. This adds suspense and creepiness to the scene. The next frames are wedding-video-style flashbacks to the [ex-]fiancé getting ready for the wedding with his 3 best men/ushers. They are all excited and chatty, but the scene suddenly cuts back to an extreme close up of the bride's eye, as soon as the line "how do I look?" is spoken by the now-ex-fiancé. Another extreme close up of the 'bride's lips are shown, as the lipstick is smudged and this implies her unhealthy mental state. The next frames are of the 'bride' flipping through the photo album including photos of herself, her best friend, her ex-fiancé, and his best friends. The photos are on paper and have been written on, words such as "innocent" for the bride and "cheat" for the ex-fiancé. Eerie music plays all throughout these frames, and the next frames of the 'bride' killing the 'groom's best friends (pictured in the photo album with X's through their faces). When the extreme close up of the 'groom' is shown, the 'bride' circles his face in red marker pen. The next shot shows him and the 'bride's 'best friend' sitting on the sofa, implying that he left the 'bride' for her best friend. The scene is silent apart from the 'groom' talking with his new girlfriend. He then leaves the room, and tense music slowly builds up. He is shown in the bathroom, there is brief silence, and then a loud piece of intense music is played as he opens the bathroom door and the 'bride' is standing there with a knife.

2 December 2013

Group Storyboard - Miss Miller

Group: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Lily Badcock and Jazz Chrystie

In our groups, we discussed each of our individual storyboards. We have combined our favourite parts of our individual storyboards and put these ideas into our group storyboard. Before we finalised the group storyboard, we discussed all of the ideas that we had.

Jazz, Lily and I all added flashback shots to our storyboards. These include getting ready for the wedding (Lily's and Jazz's storyboards), and the murders of the groom's friend (all individual storyboards). We have decided to keep all of the flashback shots and include them in our group storyboard, as we feel that they enhance and create the atmospheres in the film that we are trying to achieve. We are also keeping the first shot - panning around the room - because it adds slight context to the situation of a strange woman in a wedding dress/veil. We are also keeping the shot of the woman in the wedding dress crossing out photos of the two men who will be killed (to be shown before the flashbacks of the woman killing them). This is a very important element of our film as it shows the woman's very dangerous and homicidal mental state.

Our individual storyboards were combined to create a group storyboard. We have featured the best elements of each of our individual storyboards (seen above) so as to create the best sequence possible.

Production Roles - Miss Miller

Group: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Jazz Chrystie and Lily Badcock

Specific roles were necessary for each group member to have to ensure the easiest and smoothest filming process. It helps keep the filming organised, and speeds up the process if people are doing all different jobs at once. There are several roles that are necessary for creating a film: producers (in charge of generally everyone and everything), directors (guides technical crew to create their vision for the film), actors, director of photography (cameraman), sound producers/music, screenplay writer, mise-en-scene co-ordinators, and editors.

Jazz, Lily and I allocated ourselves 3-4 important production roles each. This was an easy way to organise ourselves, as it saves time because we are all doing many jobs at once. Firstly, we all had acting roles within the film. We needed many characters, so we each had one role. It was necessary to have other actors outside of our group due to our narrative, and so extra roles were played by 3 other boys. Lily played the main character, I played her friend/bridesmaid who ran away with her ex-fiancé, and Jazz played the ex-fiancé. The extra roles were Jazz's character's friends/best man/ushers. We all acted in the film as we all have at least some acting experience from previous education (secondary school). All acting roles were performed well and there were no issues in this area. Furthermore, filming was made easier by the fact that we had extra actors readily available.

I was the director of photography/cameraman for most of the film, therefore I am being credited in the film as director of photography. Also, I have experience with using a camera, and it was therefore decided that I should be appointed director of photography for the majority of the film. This made filming easier as I was only in the film for two/three short scene and so was available to be the director of photography for the rest of the sequence. I feel that I carried out my role well and nothing went wrong in relation to camerawork. I was also the sound producer for the film - deciding which sound techniques to use, which sounds and music to use and where they go. I am primarily responsible for the sound effects that take place during production and post-production of the film. Again, I am not in most of the film, so making me the sound producer was the easiest option. I had more time to finalise how the film should sound and what sound techniques it should include, and to find the appropriate sounds for the sequence. This makes filming and editing easier because I have the most time available. I also feel as if this role was carried out well, which made the pre and post production of the film easier, as there were no problems with sound.

Lastly, all group members (including myself) will edit the film. However, I am lead editor, and my name will appear in the credits for editing. I also have the most experience out of all group members with using editing software, so to make editing easier and quicker, I was appointed lead editor. I will do the majority - but not all - of the editing on the film. All group members will be consulted whenever the film is edited to make sure that the final product turns out to be what we all envisioned in our group storyboard. This speeds the process of editing up, as we all know exactly who is doing what and what is happening.

Jazz is the producer of the film. His role is to make sure everyone is doing their job, and well. This makes filming and editing easier as it ensures that everyone is focused all of the time. This speeds the film-making and editing processes on further as it ensures that all production roles are being carried out up to a good standard. Jazz was also only in the film for a short period, which means that he was able to manage everyone with his free time. Jazz is also the mise-en-scene co-ordinator. While we all contributed, in the planning stage and filming stage, to the mise-en-scene of all shots, Jazz was appointed lead mise-en-scene co-ordinator. He understands the group storyboard well and helped 'bring it to life' on camera. This ensures that our film is up to the best possible standard, as our ideas are portrayed well on camera.

A film director leads the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film, guiding the technical crew and actors to help create the director's vision. Lily was the director of our film, as she had good ideas to create our script and storyboard on camera. While Jazz and I did contribute to 'directing', Lily was main director. Lily was a very good choice for this role as she is very creative and artistic, and understands how she wants the scenes to look. Lily was also lead screenplay writer, as she knew exactly what she wanted to happen, and Jazz and I agreed with her plans for the film. This in particular made the process smooth as well as enjoyable because we were all completely aware of what the film is going to be.

Overall, we all did well in our production roles, and the filming process was relatively smooth. This is because we all knew exactly what we were doing in regards to our production roles, and this prevented trying last-minute to fix things etc. However, we did not film all that we wanted to exactly on time. This is simply due to underestimating the amount of time needed and the immediate unavailability of extra actors. We could have avoided this with better planning and more communication within the group.

1 December 2013

Risk Assessment and Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

Risk Assessment
It is important to consider all risks before filming, as the health and safety of everyone included in the film-making process is important. Furthermore, identifying all risks and how to avoid them minimises the potential hazards. The below risk assessment will therefore assist us with filming in that we now know how to avoid hazards.

Hazards:
  1. Trailing leads while filming. We can prevent this by securing all leads with tape to minimise chance of tripping and keep every crew and cast member safe.
  2. Knife. We will be using a knife in our film as it is the murder weapon. To minimise the risk of getting hurt due to this knife, we will use a fake knife. This reduces the chance of injury, self-inflicted or other.
  3. Filming near roads. We were careful when filming the outside scenes near the road to not be near cars, as this could cause an accident.
Filming Schedule
It is very important to have a filming schedule. It helps organise the filming and speeds up the process of filming. We tried to follow the schedule exactly as it was, however, we did not quite manage to do this. The photo album was not completed in time for filming, so the 8th shot needed to be filmed after the originally planned day/time, on Tuesday 10th December. Moreover, some shots were filmed slightly later (up to an hour) later than planned due to unplanned delay. However, all shots that we were able to film were filmed.

Film schedule:

Shot
Date & time
Location
Content /Action
Shot type & Duration
Costume/ hair/ make up
Iconography
Personnel
Equipment
1
21/11/13
15:30
Loughton
– inside, bedroom
Antagonist sitting on bed of dark room filled with wedding decorations and flowers
panning shot -
5 seconds
Wedding dress/veil, smeared make up
Wedding balloons, flowers
Actress, director of photography, costume designer, make-up artist, location manager
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card
2
21/11/13
15:50

Loughton
– inside, different bedroom
Flashbacks of getting ready for the wedding & wedding balloons & bride coming downstairs
Handheld mid shots – approx 6 seconds
Wedding dress/veil, wedding make up.
Bridesmaid dress, minimal make up.
Hair straighteners, wedding balloons
Actress x2, director of photography, costume/make up person, location manager
Digital camera, charger, memory card
3
21/11/13
16:15

Loughton – inside, bedroom
Present-time antagonist drawing on wedding balloons
Mid shot – 7 seconds
Wedding dress/veil, smeared make up
Balloons, marker pen
Actress, director of photography, costume/make up person, location manager
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card
4
21/11/13
16:30

Loughton
Antagonist with smeared eye make-up and messy lipstick
Extreme close ups – 3 seconds each
Extremely smudged/messy eye make-up, and badly-applied lipstick

Actress, director of photography, make-up artist
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card
5
26/11/13
16:45

Loughton – inside living room
Flashback to groom and friends getting ready for the wedding
Handheld mid shot – approx. 10 seconds
Suit and ties

Actors x3, director of photography, costume designer, location manager
Digital camera, charger, memory card
6
26/11/13
17:15
Loughton – outside in street, at night
Flashback to first killing
Long shot – 7 seconds
Wedding dress/veil, smeared make-up.
Casual clothing for victim.
Victim talking on phone, knife
Actors x2, director of photography, costume designer, make-up artist, location manager
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card
7
26/11/13
17:40
Loughton-inside, kitchen
Flashback to second killing
Long shot – 7-10 seconds
Wedding dress/veil, smeared make-up.
Casual clothing for
two boys – victim and his friend.
Mugs (sets the scene of casual meeting)
Actors x3, director of photography, costume designer, make-up artist, location manager
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card
8
26/11/13
18:00
Loughton – inside, bedroom
‘Bride’ looking through the photo album
Mid shot
-10-13 seconds
Wedding dress
Photo album
Actress, director of photography, costume designer, location manager
Digital camera, charger, tripod, memory card