Centre No. 14109 - Rebecca Holloway 7279 - Danielle Blasse 7010 - Cloe Pace-Soler 7352 - Natasha Welch 7399

Monday 25 February 2013

Shooting Script: 28th February 2013

Attending:
Natasha ~ Filming
Rebecca ~ Filming
Danielle ~ Filming
Eden ~ Actor
Anna ~ Actor

Meeting Time: 3.45pm
Location: Townley Grammar, then go to Hall Place

Filming begins: 4:15-6pm
-Medium shots of actors walking past their 'home'
-Close up shots of them in conversation on bench/walking along
- death scene, Eden killing Anna - surrounded by trees/dark area
- Walking past the river/medium/establishing shots
- Anna contorting -full shot
- Bloody dress floating down the river, full shot
- Extreme close up of knife
- POV (from Eden) of approaching Anna to kill. 

Leave Location: 6pm

Shots to be used:
Establishing shots
Medium shots
POV shots
Full shot
Extreme close ups

Thursday 21 February 2013

Shooting Script: 24th February 2013

Attending:
Natasha ~ Filming
Rebecca ~ Filming
Danielle ~ Filming
Eden ~ Actor
Anna ~ Actor

Meeting Time: 1pm
Location: Hall Place

Filming begins: 1pm-3pm

Establishing shots of the area
Happy scene of Anna and Eden
-Extreme close ups of them talking
-Medium shots
- Anna beginning to be possessed, running through trees, standing near river, (establishing shots)
- Bench scene -establishing shots

Leave Location: 3pm


Shots to be used:
Establishing shots
Medium shots
POV shots
Low Angle Shots
Medium Shots

Tuesday 12 February 2013

Name Research

We need to come up with a name for our film opening, so I decided to research different names other films have used and the meaning behind them. This will help us decide on possible names for our opening which we can eventually add to our opening.

Scream:
This name is very simple, it is showing the outcome of the scare in the film, making people expect a frightening experience and could suggest that they will scream themselves. This simplicity works well for the name of a film because no clues are given into the actual storyline, making the viewer want to watch the film and find out what is so scary.

Sinister:
This name is also very simple, however it is not showing the outcome of the scare, but the source of the scare. It gives the impression that something - it is not revealed what - is going to be the cause of a series of sinister events. There are no clues to the character's reactions or emotions, and we do not know  how the story will turn out. This kind of name is good as it keeps the viewer guessing and wanting more, encouraging them to watch the film.

The Last House on the Left:

This name is the longest name I looked at, it is telling the viewer immediately what the source of the scare is, and this reveals a lot about what could happen in the film. By picking a name like this, it is important that we consider if a name like this would be good for our opening, because we will not be revealing much of the plot, so a name like this focusing on a particular point could be irrelevant and confuse the viewers. However, when looking at this for film names in general, it points out to us that a name like this allows the viewer to look out for certain clues, to help them figure out what is going to happen in the film and storyline. It allows them to stay engaged with the film and find out if what they think is going to happen actually happens.

The Ring:

The Ring is another very short name for a film, and is telling us the source of the scare straight away. This means that viewers know what to look out for when watching the film, and can predict what may happen in the story line  It allows viewers again look out for this source and determine when the most scary parts of the film may occur. However, this name could actually be a metaphor for a series of events in the film, misleading people into looking for a 'ring' but shocking them with another idea which happens over and over again. This will be good for a film name as the viewers will be surprised and keep watching to find out more.

Shrooms:

This name is telling us the source of the scare, and allows the viewer to identify what is going to happen in the film. The name fits well with the film because as soon as the characters take 'shrooms' the viewer immediately expects things to go wrong and expect the film to become scary or jumpy. 

American Psycho:

This is another name which gives away the source of the scare. It works quite well because the viewer not only finds out where the film's protagonist is from, but also a trait from their personality. This idea could be incorporated into our film name, however, we would need to come up with an effective and relevant name for our protagonist, because it may not make it very clear to the viewer at all.

Stay:

This name is really effective because it doesn't give very much away about the actual story line, but the action, stay, gives lots of different ideas to the viewer, and shows the outcome of the scare in the horror. This could suggest something happens, causing the characters to make a decision to fight back, or as the title suggests, stay back. We could think about a name similar to this concept, however it may not work very effectively with how much of the story line we actually reveal.

Apartment 143:
This again is another name revealing the source of the scare to the viewers straight away. This name immediately gives away the location of the film and shows that it is most likely in a city location. This idea could be implemented in our opening name - something suggesting the idea of a forest location to the viewer. The number '43' also gives the viewer something to look out for, and will make them more scared when 'apartment 43' is finally revealed to them. It increases suspense and allows them to think about what they suspect may happen in the storyline.

The Orphan:

This is once more another source of the scare film name. The idea of a child being involved should make the audience feel sympathy, but by calling the film this, it creates a sinister atmosphere and causes the audience to have doubts in the orphan's identity. We could use this in our film opening, because we have a demonic female character, so by looking at her character closely, we may be able to mimic this idea for our own title.

Funny Games:

'Funny Games' is telling is the source of the scare straight away. It is quite vague, and the audience can't really get anything from just the title. However, it could give them the idea that perhaps something which is meant to be a light hearted joke or some fun goes terribly wrong. This means the audience will expect something to happen to the characters as they try to figure out the plot line themselves. We could use a similar concept to keep the audience guessing and build the suspense in our opening.

Paranormal Activity:

This is the final film name I decided to look at, and it is again revealing the source of the scare to the audience. It gives them an idea of what is going to happen, and links to the genre, but doesn't give too much away.

Our ideas:
When looking at the different names I have come up with a few names. Over the next few weeks my group will look through them and decided which one fits the finished & edited film opening.

- Beyond
I came up with this because the dead sister comes back from beyond the grave, this fits with our location too.
- The Sisters
This was chosen because the opening focuses on two sisters, and the rest of the film could be focusing on how they grew up together or how they go against each other.
- Deadly
Because the sister came back from the dead and is now a demonic creature, it could highlight how she is deadly and threatening to other characters, especially her first victim her child.
- Mourning
This isn't the best name, however it would work for the opening, but not necessarily the beat option for a name for the whole film.
- Rivalry
This could suggest that there is more to the sister's previous relationship than first meets the eye. And this could suggest the deadly intentions of one of the sisters.
- Child's Play
This is my personal favourite, as it would make the opening act like a current time piece of footage, and let the rest of the film consist of flashbacks and what happens next, revealing why and how the sisters have ended up like this.

Monday 11 February 2013

Chosen typography and name

Typography and Name
Name:
We found that the best name was 'Child's Play' which symbolised the fact that the two sisters had grown up together and were very close.

Typography:
After evaluating all the fonts we have come to the decision that the most suitable font for our movie opening would either be the font used in Sherlock Holmes as it suits the period or the font in the Woman in Black as it is rather gothic and suits our opening.We decided that the colours red, black and white would suit our opening the most after the colour research blog which outlined the best colours for a horror movie. The second title has a darker red which has more of an impact as it looks like splattered blood linking into the plot of our opening.


Changing Ideas: 
Although this was our original idea after research on IMDb we discovered that the name 'Childs Play' was too common, so common in fact that there was a movie in 2011 and there will be one coming out in 2014 so we could not use it.


This therefore caused a problem for us so we came up with a list of names drawing from the original list and from more recent ideas the main names involved were: 
- Her Darling Demon 
- Guilt 
- Sibling Rivalry 

We decided in the end that Her Darling Demon would be more suitable as it portrayed the plot of a girl killing her own sister out of love because her sister was possessed. This would be shown as the 'darling' suggests affection but 'demon' is more evil and suggests demonic forces. 

We also changed our font again as the first two didn't look very old fashioned, so we searched on dafont for more suitable fonts and found one that matched our opening, here it is: 



We finally decided that this would be our final product but either on black on white depending on what is more visible. We decided this because it is more classic and suits the time period as we don't want the don't to be too modern and then not match the Victorian time period it is set in.








Sunday 10 February 2013

Stop Motion Editing

This week, I decided to work on our stop motion part of our film opening. We decided to use stop motion for this part as it would make it quite disorientating for the viewer and also would make use of our skills. I used windows movie maker for this, but we will be importing it into iMovie shortly. On a previous filming day I took many pictures of Anna, our actress, dressed in costume with her wound applied. I took pictures from a 360 degree angle around her, and stop motion allows it to look slightly jerky without being bad.
Here are some examples of the pictures taken:

I took a close up shot from directly in front of her to show a sinister, demonic smile, and the hint of a wound.
This shot shows the wound fully and by Anna looking directly at the camera makes the viewer/character feel they are unable to escape from her sight.
This shot makes Anna look slightly vulnerable  lulling the audience and character into a false sense of security.










Then in Windows Movie Maker, I played around with the different timings, I could either choose to make the clips run for around 7 seconds each, giving the viewer a detailed look at Anna's character each picture, however this meant the pictures didn't look like they flowed very well when played, so I kept making the timings shorter and shorter to see what looked best. In the end, the final footage only lasts 1 second, however this looks much better, as the photographs flow, but are slightly jerky adding to the disorientation. Also, this means it won't take up a long time in our actual opening, meaning we won't bore the audience with 22 seconds of effectively a slideshow. By speeding it up, it also gives the opportunity to use some kind of sound on this 1 second part of footage, such as 'woosh' kind of sound, to bring suspense to one of the first times we see Anna's face properly. Now I have sped the footage up, in iMovie we can add visual effects such as filters so that it blends nicely with the other footage and fits with the time period.

When experimenting with the footage  found that changing the hue on some pictures, gives and interesting effect when played quickly, so I have published that too, to see if i could be used on whether we decide the original is best.


Diegetic Sound Recording

Diegetic Sound Recording

When filming our coursework we noticed that the diegetic sound was unable to be heard clearly, therefore taking away from a lot of the tension that we want to build. In order to overcome this, we would have to record the sound of footsteps/twigs snapping etc. separately to the scene itself. 
This would be proven effective especially at the end as we are planning to include a scream.
 I needed to record the following, a scream and a twig snapping. To do this i used a field recorder although when recording i had to bare in mind the surrounding noises such as cars or aeroplanes.

When recording the scream we thought that using a large area would be more beneficial therefore allowing the sound to travel whereas if we were in a tight space the scream may have been too over powering and therefore distorted on the recording. This is good as it means we may not have to record it separately to the scene, dependant on the surrounding noise. 

Additionally, we had to record the rustling of leaves and the sound of a twig snapping to create a feeling of a second presence in the scene as well as well as building tension up to an anti climactic point in which only a twig will snap.



Overall, the recording process was really easy and can be edited into our footage without a problem, however it's necessary to bare in mind the clarity of the sounds that we are using as it's easy to pick up the sound of traffic and other noises. I also found that by finding a secluded small area the sound is picked up better and clearer as the sound is able to bounce off its surroundings creating a nice clear acoustic.

Monday 4 February 2013

Shooting Script 3rd February 2013


Shooting Script: 3rd February 2013

RebNatDanClo,shooting script,eden,anna,Rebecca,3rd Febrary 2013,Location,genre,horror

Attending:
Natasha ~ Filming
Rebecca ~ Filming
Danielle ~ Filming
Cloé ~ Filming
Eden ~ Actor
Anna ~ Actor

Meeting Time: 10am
Location: Rebecca and Danielle: Bexleyheath Station
Everyone else: Victoria Station

Filming begins: 11:30-12pm

Establishing shots of the area
End scene with Eden in shots
- over the shoulder shots
- high/low angle shots from Eden/Anna's POV
-Extreme close ups
-Close ups
Redo Anna's medium running shots (previously stopped running too early)

Leave Location: 4pm

Shots to be used:
Establishing shots
Medium shots
POV shots
Low Angle Shots


Sunday 3 February 2013

Making of non diegetic sound

Production of Non Diegetic Sound

In terms of making the non diegetic sound for our course work i had to bare in mind the type of horror film we are filming and what would sound the most effective. In terms of production Logic Pro would have been easier to use however when it came to linking my microphone to Logic the sound became distorted therefore having to use Garage Band.

I started off  by listing all the scenes in
which non diegetic sound will be needed.
The longest scene would be the chase
scene between the antagonist and
protagonist. The screen shot above shows the making of the non diegetic sound for this scene. Once the microphone i was using worked well with GarageBand i recorded straight to it. However, because i am unable to play every single instrument, i used what GarageBand was able to offer me to help create ambient sound. When watching a horror movie the sound contributes significantly providing peaks of tension in the film. The screen shot shows the textures separating as each instrument is added therefore highlighting the peaks at which the music builds the most tension.




Although in terms of the non diegetic sound we do not need for it to peak to an extent that it will scare our audience. Sometimes non diegetic sound needs to establish a feeling and mood rather than build any tension. The scene this sound is for is when the protagonist senses another presence within the cemetery. In contrast to the screen shot above, the textures are not as segregated as it develops yet it's still able to build tension.






Upon creating the sounds in GarageBand i was convinced that it wouldn't be as successful as using Logic ( i was unable to use Logic as my mic was incompatible with it) however, i was rather surprised. At first i was rather unsure of how we needed our non diegetic sound to sound. I started off by using the templates and loops that GarageBand offered creating rather mysterious motifs but soon realising that they wouldn't be too sufficient for our coursework; which is when i decided to use my own instruments to create the non diegetic sound

Theory of Equilibrium

Theory of Equilibrium

The theory of Equilibrium was introduced by Tzvetan Todorov in which he simplified the idea of narrative theory while also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts. The state of equilibrium is when everything is as it should be in a state of equal balance between powers of any kind, where equality of importance or effect exists among the various parts of any complex unity. Disequilibrium refers to a disruption of that order by an event. 


The Orphan

The Orphans narrative is similar to our own as it also incorporates the idea of a "child" antagonist. Throughout the narrative there are many red herrings as well as shock factors, the graph below indicates some of the peaks throughout the clip above.  As you can see from the graph the disequilibrium remains high throughout, and it also ends on a cliff hanger, leaving the audience in suspense, this is rather similar to ours in the sense that the opening will hopefully leave the audience in wonder. 



Funny Games



Funny Games is also very similar to our opening as well as The Orphan as it also incorporates a child antagonist however there are two antagonists. Throughout this scene, the younger child is manipulated to believe that murder is the only way out of this situation although he's unaware of the idea that the gun is unloaded, putting his morals through questioning achieving a rather cruel torture. In terms of the theory of equilibrium this is rather gradual and does not carry as much shock factor as The Orphan does. Therefore there's an extremely gradual build up.



RebNatDanClo
As mentioned above, our opening uses a child antagonist therefore playing with the psychological features within a horror and subverting the conformities of an antagonist. In a sense, out of the two films above our narrative is similar to Funny Games as it gradually builds yet we have still incorporated peaks through the use of the non diegetic sound. 

Evaluation of the Day - 03/02/13

Tasks to be done

  • Film end scene - completed 
  • Film chase scene - completed 
  • Film graveyard scene - completed
Filming the end scene:
This scene was with both actors (Anna & Eden) and had the death of Eden and the possession/face morph (which we will achieve later through editing) of Anna. Here we had shots of Eden in the foreground without realising that Anna was walking down the stairs towards her, we had the sudden appearance of Anna in the background up on the stone platform after Eden's searching for her and included the final bit with the face morph before the blackout and the scream.
Filming this was rather successful as we knew exactly what we were doing that there weren't many problems with that, it was also less cold which made this more bearable and extended the time that we were able to stay. We also had both our actors today therefore making it much easier to complete the filming.

Filming the chase scene:
In this scene we had multiple positioning and angles of Eden chasing Anna down a path towards where the final scene would be. This was also rather successful as we managed to film it all apart from filming Eden's feet and her POV shot with the prop as we did not have the prop today. We were able to redo the scenes where Anna did not go far enough down the path and had them chase from the gravestone with Eden's realisation that Anna was next to her.

Filming the graveyard scene:
In this scene we had Anna haunting Eden as she looked at the grave, here we managed to get multiple places where Anna was looking at her creating a supernatural feel and building suspense. We also filmed the sound of a twig snapping and Eden gasping as she looked up to find that no one was there. This was rather successful as well and there weren't any difficulties that we had to deal with.

Overall:
To conclude today was a successful day, we managed to get all the filming with Anna completed and now only need to film the final scenes with the prop, therefore we are nearly finished and will soon be moving onto only editing. 

Saturday 2 February 2013

Research: Production Companies

List of possible production companies:


Hammer Film Productions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_Film_Productions
Responsible for the Frankenstein series (1959-1974) and the Dracula series (1960-1974) and The Woman in Black







Warner Bros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros.
Responsible for Harry Potter films (2001-2011)








Twisted Pictures

Responsible for the Saw films (2004-2010)







MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)










Miramax Films

Responsible for The Never Ending Story III (1994)







Amicus Productions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amicus_Productions
Responsible for 'From Beyond the Grave' 1974






Brain Damage Films
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_damage_films

Responsible for The Vultures Eye (2004)






To conclude we decided that 'Hammer' would be the best production company for our movie as they produced old fashioned movies which were quite successful therefore it would best suit our genre and movie opening. This clip is the logo that will be present in our film opening: