Feedback from Ms Blackborow

Yesterday during our lesson, Ms. Blackborow gave us some feedback on our opening sequence and suggested a few things that we could improve on.

• Pace: at the moment, our opening sequence maintains more or less the same pace throughout, and Ms Blackborow feels that everything's happening quite fast. So, she suggested that we slow down all of the shots up until the girl turns around. She also suggested that we slow down the shots where the girl is captured by the killer.


• Establishing shot: Ms Blackborow said that we could cut out part of the beginning of the establishing shot since it's slightly shakey at the beginning.

Angelie

Friday 21st December

We have a new song, it's called 'Cold city', and it has a fantastically eery feel to it, the only problem os that although it starts slow it never reaches a crescendo of any sort, but this also indicates to the audience that she is going to be caught and that there's no point even hoping.

Targets for Christmas Holidays

• Find a medium sized red marker (one is too big and one too small) - everyone
• Take photos of girls for 'new girl' - Matt + Alix
• Brainstorm film titles

Pan Shot

Plan

• Pan starts half way across one photo (well this is where we will cut it for the start of the shot)
• Goes across 3/4 other photos which are all crossed out with red marker
• Comes to photo of Alix, crosses it out top left to bottom right, then top right to bottom left.
• The camera carries on panning to see just a photo of a girl walking a long the road/waiting for a bus.
• Then he puts a new photo up of this girl - doing something normal again, and he strokes the photo

Contrast

We've realised that adjusting the colouring, contrast and lighting so it looks the same throughout our sequence is going to be fairly time consuming. For continuity purposes, the colouring and contrast is going to need to be basically the same, and since we shot on different days, a lot of our shots look quite different. We've decided to make all the shots a sort of bluey colour and we'll put quite a bit of contrast on each of them. So, we'll have to spend quite a bit of time making it all the same.

Angelie

Poloroids

We've finally scanned them in, we experimented with 4 different types of light and here is a sample

We all thought a dark effect looked good on the camera, however as it was going to be shot in a dark room they might not show up, and the red cross on them wouldn't have shown up either. We also needed to definitely recognise Alix's face for full anchorage that he has just killed her etc.


These are the ones we are going to use because we think they are the most effective, they will really show up the crosses and we like the detail on them.

(None of the scanners would interpret the other 2 light levels properly - don't know why)

Alix

Monday 17th December

WEEKEND FOOTAGE

it was good, we got it all done, and i was happy with the shoot thankyou I was impressed with Alix's ability to fall over, and was pleased with her commitment. Nick's haircut wasn't too bad for us, as he was only in about 2 shots pre-shaving, one which we actually recorded over. He was very good, and we even let him have a go recording one of our trail runs, he was actually quite good.... The footage was overall quite good, so our only shots left are of the killer putting the photo of Alix up on the wall. We also need to figure out a name for Nick to call out, and record that, probably on the school field or in the nearby park to get the same diegetic effect that we would've had in the forest. The contrast, brightness and general colour of each shot varied, but this can be fixed in the editing process.
WOOH NO MORE GROVELANDS

liam

Villain's Speech

We want our main character (villain) to be saying/mumbling something when he is dragging her away and/or when he crosses out/puts up the new photos. Possible ideas:

• "I knew you'd/ she'd look good in the dress"

Alix

• "She was pretty" - as he crosses her out
• When he puts up the new/main girl i think he should say something relevant to the film title - like 'i just can't resist one more"???, then the title is 'irresistable (rough example)
• He could sigh loudly and say 'she should've listened'

Liam

Dragging

• "I'll need to up the dosage next time
• SHe should've listened....
• How dare she
• tsk, tsk, tsk"

New Photo

• sniffs
• stroke it
• "I'll take care of you"
• "There There..."

Matt

• there could be a voiceover throughout the whole chase, of the victim and villain's conversation before she escaped. e.g. Villain: "do you know who i am?" "do you understand?" "i am much more than a human" Victim: "please don't hurt me" "you won't get away with this" "[Scream]"
• he could possibly say something which mimics the victim's speech prior to her escape [in the same high pitched voice]. e.g "please don't hurt me" This would show his state of mental illness and isolation from the normal society. Also this would reflect his dominance.

Effects

We feel that it isn;t anchored enough that she has been heavily drugged and we ar eplanning to use the following effects to emphasis this. Firstly, on the camera there is the "trail" effect, which makes the image lag with movement, meaning there is a delay on the speed of the shot. Aspects of the previous frame are left in the shot to create the effect of heavily delayed reactions. Secondly, and also on the camera, is the "slow shutter speed" effect. This has a strength of 1-4, and we found 2 the most effective. This uses less frames and also blurs when action is captured, therefore creating a delay and the effect of impaired vision.
In the editing suite there are several video effects which can be used to slightly alter or adjust specific shots. The blur and soften tools can be used to make objects less distinguishable in shot, as if a person cannot focus on them properly.

LIAM

Our Favourite Shots

Favourite shots (and possible screen grabs for the cover).

1)

We all really like this big close up shot. It reflects the themes of 'anaesthetising' through drug abuse, kidnap as the villain is swarming the victim, and shows dominance and brutal nature of the villain which will be developed in the rest of the film. The clean and clinical method of sedation reflects his ability and experience. We also slowed this shot down during the opening to create more suspense and highlight the key themes it shows. I think this is a perfect shot to put on the DVD cover as it sets up expectations of the film through its generic signifiers etc. yet it doesnt give away any of the film narrative.-i.e. THIS IS THE FALSE HEROINE. So in fac tthe audience only learn the themes of the film, they dont learn who teh main characters are!

2)

As a group we feel this low level, medium close up, track is very effective. It clearly shows generic codes such as black v light clothing to show good v evil, whilst it also shows that there is infact going to be elements of chase scenes occuring through the film . This also acts almost as an establishing shot, as we see the enormity of the forest and we can see there is no way out of here -reminding themes of isolation and entrappment. The distancing between the victim and villain in this shot also shows that he is catching her even though he is walking whilst she is running.

MATT

Friday 14th December

Our definitely final shoot is tomorrow, we are meeting at 9am and plan to finish by 12. We are going to re shoot the following shots of Nick because of his new hair cut:

• The first shot of him walking, he will now walk almost side to side in the frame to make it more obvious (that she is drugged)
• The aerial (ish) shot of her running in shot and then him running in shot, in our first take they run top right to bottom left, but it has to be bottom right to top left so that it makes sense (as she runs that way into the forest).
• We need a shot from her POV (just after she has looked round) of him behind her striding towards the camera - reverse track as if she is running obviously
• More low level tracking shots of his feet (and her feet)
• The entire capture scene, as in editing the shots don't fit together well due to different bodily positions.

We also need to shoot some other shots which are missing and some new ones:

• More POV shots - we need more anchorage that she is drugged
• We need to reshoot her feet running past the camera and then his as well (it wasn;t framed very well and Alix's feet need to stumble)
• A few more CU reverse tracks of Alix to show more emotion
• We also need a shot of her looking round (then cut to her POV)
• We are also maybe going to do our river shot AGAIN as it is still a little wobbly.
• We also need to get some panting/frantic sounds of Alix

Alix

Thursday 17th December

We have planned to shoot our poloroid photos tomorrow lunch time at the back of the great hall, so far 3 girls (and Alix obviously) are definitely coming, and we only have 1 or 2 more to ask. They will be in the white dresses and will be gagged (the back ground will be dark and therefor mysterious so you don;t know where he keeps him - therefore not giving away his where abouts yet in the film)

Targets

• Bring white dress + poloroid camera in - Alix
• Bring material for gag in

Alix

Wednesday 12th November

We captured our shots and we started editing it together, and it has started coming together. The main problem is the contrast between the shots, obviously as they come from many different days the lighting conditions are incredibly varied, but we are going to experiment with contrast.

Shots to shoot on Saturday

• More running shots of Alix
• Shots of Nick walking towards the camera
• More action matches between Alix and Nick
• POVs

We realised we need a lot more POVs to show just how drugged she is, particularly because even though Alix felt like she was acting very frantically + drugged, it didn't come across that way on camera.

Alix

Shooting Weekend

On Saturday morning we went to Grovelands to test shoot our new idea without Nick, and to try and do some final shots which Alix was in and Nick wasn't. However, after about 30 minutes it started to rain, and continued to get heavier until it was impossible to shoot and Alix was extremely cold (particularly as she was on the floor a lot). So we decided to go back to Alix's house as it was round the corner and do some more planning and storyboarding.

Then on sunday we met at 9am and started to shoot, after about 2 hours it started to completely pour but instead of giving up again we decided to wait under a shelter until it cleared up - which it did after about half an hour. There were showers for the rest of the day but we were still able to shoot through out. We didn't get it finished but we did get some good shots, however we are having great difficulty with one reaction shot of her looking around to see him, because Alix's acting skills aren't great - we feel the only solution is to keep trying because it's such a crucial shot we can't cut it.

This tuesday we have a half day and the only lessons we have in the morning is double media studies and double private study so we are planning to shoot then. However Nick is unavailable so we will have to shoot for a few hours on Sunday morning to complete the shots with him in.

Alix

Storyboards

Initial storyboarding of our first sequence:

Matt

Storyboard of new idea:



(Red arrows for camera movement and green arrows for character movement)


This storyboard was compiled during test shooting sessions at the exact location of our opening.

Matt,Alix,Angelie,Liam

Another change of plan and a minor problem...

Now Alix is definitely acting in the opening sequence.

We decided that it's too short notice and unfair of us to ask Ciara to change her plans to suit us. And, since we weren't 100% sure we'd definitely be using Ciara anyway, it'd be even more unfair if we ended up not using her.

We also realised that although Lara had her own pair of white shoes, Alix doesn't have any... Alix might try to borrow Lara's, but they might be a bit too small. So, Angelie's bringing a pair of her white shoes to the shoot tomorrow to see if those will fit better.

Angelie

New weekend schedule

Saturday
On Saturday we're meeting at Alix's house at 9 a.m. to create a storyboard for the new opening sequence. We're then going to the park to test out the new shots. Alix will act as the victim for these test shots. We plan on doing some screen testing for Ciara, so might also test out some of our shots with her in them. If Alix ends up needing to act in our opening sequence, then some of the shots we do to test things out may be used as part of our opening sequence. Our actor, Nick, is probably not going to be needed.
We may also do some sound capturing while we're there in the park.

Sunday
On Sunday we'll be meeting quite early morning in the park.
If Alix is our actress: we'll shoot all of the shots that we didn't take on Saturday along with all the shots that Nick features in.
If Ciara is our actress: we'll shoot all of our shots, excluding any really good shots we may have taken on Saturday.
We will also shoot all the shots featuring Nick and maybe do some more sound capturing.

All of these plans will happen regardless of weather conditions.

Angelie

New Actress

Our original actress (Lara) told us that she can't shoot on Sunday since she has to be at work by about 10 in the morning. This gave us some major problems, but we sorted out a few possible solutions quite quickly.

1. Use another actress: Ciara
   Originally, we had intended to use Ciara as the main girl for the rest of the film. So, it would have been her picture that was put up on the killer's wall of victims and she would have been on the front cover of the DVD. Instead, we may use Ciara for the actress in the opening sequence with Lara as the main character of the film.
2. Use another actress: Alix
   Since Alix knows exactly what we want the opening to look like, she probably wouldn't require as much direction as another actress. But, Alix would prefer to spend a bit more time behind the camera. Also, Alix may be a bit too tall to be a thriller victim and she says she can't really act.

We're probably going to use Ciara as our actress. But, since we're not sure if she can act and we haven't screen tested her before, so we'll do that tomorrow. Then, if Ciara doesn't really fit the part, Alix will have to act instead.

Pictures of Ciara to be added soon.

Angelie

Friday 7th December

After watching creating a short rough edit of our footage from the past 2 weekends, we realised that our footage wasn't quite to the standard that we would have hoped. So we discussed a new way of shooting with Ms. Blackborow and created a slightly different chase sequence (with much tighter framing):

• Establishing shots of the river
  
  
• A pan from the river to a shoe on the ground amongst some leaves
  

• A hand comes into frame, scrabbling for the shoe. Then the hand finds the shoe and grabs it and pulls it out of frame
  

• Girl puts shoe on (only hands/arms and feet/legs shown)
  

• Shots going up her body
  

• Shot of girl looking very startled (she has just heard the killer calling her name, or something similar)
  

• The killer's silhouette appears at the top of the slope. Then it cuts to shots of him seemingly 'jumping' forwards
  

• Girl scrambles up
  

• Girl falls again and grabs tree or maybe knee
  

• Running shots of her (the killer is in none of these)
  

• Matches of her and him (e.g. her feet come into and out of frame then his feet come into and out of frame, she runs past and touches a tree then he walks past and touches a tree etc)
  

• She's looking around to see where he is then crashes into him and he captures her
  

• He chloroforms her
  

• He drags her away (shot of her feet, maybe her shoe falls off, linking the ending to the beginning ? )

It probably also needs to be said that some of the shots Ms Blackborow suggested/liked were ones that Matt suggested a while ago but the rest of the group rejected because we thought it'd look too supernatural.

In this meeting we decided that we're definitely going to need to buy another white dress for the girls in the polaroids to wear.

Angelie

Thursday 6th December

We decided to stick to our orginal(ish) idea, we are still going to have the opening as the chase with Lara, but we will try to cut this down to 1min 20 secs. The last 40 or so seconds will be the slow fade to black, fade in and then out of the films title, then fade into the pan of the different girls omn the walls, he will then cross out in red laras face and will add a new photo of a new girl. In this meeting we also decided on the schedule for the weekend (i.e. different scenarios depening on weather) which is shown below. We are also planning to take our poloroid photos on tuesday lunch time.

Alix

Weekend Schedule

Saturday and Sunday Schedule:

• Group arrival at Grovelands at 7:45am promt to get prepared, i.e. sort out any distractions, set up tripod and organise camera, whiteboard, umbrellas, blankets, sort out course, and finalise shot order in relation ot time of actor/actress arrival.
• Actor and actress arrive at 8:00am promt ready to change into and adjust costume, such as swapping socks and shoes for tiny white plimpsoles and doing hair in the desired fashion. Ready to start filming at 8:15am
• Break from shooting session at roughly 11:00am. Sit in the park cafe to warm up-taking into consideration our actress is wearing barely anything! Also this gives us a chance to sort out any disagreements and restructure shot order if needed
• Commence filming at roughly 11:20am until 1:45pm, following shot order.

Roughly half of the shot list to be taken on each day of the weekend. But the more the merrier!

Note: breaks will be taken throughout as aactress is wearing very little and may literally be freezing and may also be taken to group our thoughts and sort out disagreements.

If the weather changes from saturday to sunday then the following procedures will take place:

• If sunny on sunday: film the remaining shots from the shot list
• If raining on sunday: film the remaining shots from the shot list and if time, reshoot yesterday's shots in this weather. Make sure the second half of teh footage is taken first as it is more important to finish shooting than to start over again. The weather is ever changing and so we will have to do our best in the editing suite to overcome this.
  

EXTRA

Monday schedule:

• free school periods two and three: go to the great hall and try out shooting the final shot of the row of victims pictures. Note: use Alix and try to find the best and most suitable lighting (taking into consideration the stage production equipment)

MATT

Weather

A large problem of ours at the moment is the weather, these are the 2 local weather reports for Southgate/Palmers Green for this coming weekend.



Obviously the best day is Sunday as it has light showers and some patchy sunshine, however, if we leave it till Sunday and it does rain in the morning we would have to shoot our whole thing again so that all of our footage is in the rain - but we can't do this all in one day.
So instead we are going plan to shoot the second half of our footage on Saturday and if it rains then we will shoot our first half again instead. This is incase it rains on sunday - we will shoot the second half on sunday, and if it rains we use the first half in the rain, and if it doesn't then we use the first half which is shot in sunshine from the previous weekend.

- Does this make sense? It seems a little rambley

Alix

Ending

Over the past couple of days, we've had lots of discussions about how to create the end part of our opening sequence. The basic idea was the same throughout (a pan across lots of polaroids of tied-up girls in the white dress, with the faces crossed out in all of them) but we had a few different ideas of how to actually set up the photos on the wall.

Originally, the idea was to just have the polaroids of the girls in the dress, in a line on a wall. Then after the camera has panned across all of them, the audience would see the killer put up a picture of the new (main) girl in the film. We realised that this wouldn’t work (as explained in the Tuesday 4th December blog), so decided to think of something slightly different.

One idea, was for the killer to have a collage of pictures of all his victims doing normal things. The camera would do pan across the collage a few times (getting lower down on the collage each time). On the wall there would also be a row of the polaroids of the gagged girls, and the camera would pan across those too. We felt like this might not look right, so we came up with some other ideas.

Another idea we had, was to have lots of pictures of different girls (i.e. a few pictures of each of them) in a line across the wall. So for example, there would be three normal sized pictures of a girl doing normal things (e.g. walking down a road, posting a letter etc) and then one polaroid of the girl in the white dress. This pattern of photos would be repeated for about 3 or 4 girls. The audience would then see him put up a picture of the new girl on the wall next to the photograph of his last victim (Lara).

The most recent idea is the one that we’re actually going to use in our opening sequence. There would be a small pile of normal photos (maybe 4 or 5 average sized photos) with a Polaroid pinned to the top. There may also be a number written at the bottom of each Polaroid, to show that this is how the killer keeps track of his victims, and also to let the audience know how many people he’s already killed. After the camera pans across these pictures, the audience would see the killer put up a picture of the new girl on the wall. This would probably be the first picture of this particular girl, to show the audience that the killer has only just started to stalk her and this would also show that the rest of the film will be about her.

Angelie

Wednesday 5th December

Serious problems changing ideas:
Well at the moment the footage we have from the two previous weekend shoots is pretty poor. The framing is not tight enough, and the acting is nowhere near the standard we need it to be. We also have some problems with the last section of the scene, the pan of the killers past victims and his victim to be, in terms of making the rest of the movie coherent. Add these to the fact that this weekend's weather report is very bleak, there is a strong chance we will not be able to shoot enough suitable footage to keep with our original idea.
Therefore we are seriously considering doing one of the below options:

• We shoot the scene in which the girl is captured by the killer.We make this section of the sequence shorter, and extend the killer's lair scene. However, we agreed that this could be difficult in terms of relevancy as to why we are showing a victim running from the killer. We thought we should start with a pan of the previous victims and see sections of their story, for example developing the killer as a photographer who gians the trust of models and then murders them.
• We completely change the scene and develop the killers background as a photographer. We have scene in which he takes pictures of models and gains their trust, and use these in the form of flashbacks and 'echoing voices'. Therefore we would probably cut the scene in which a girl is being chased through the woods as this does not makes sense together with this new footage. Only problem with this idea is finding a suitable location, and making it look like an amateur studio.
• We reshoot the whole scene with might tighter framing and better quality acting. We start much slower and build up the pace, revealing the killer much sooner. There will be several more blurry and distorted shots to connote the victim's state of mind, and we use a lot more diegetic sound to create tension and suspense for the audience. We then use the final killer's lair scene, devoted much less time to it, and making it altogether more simpler with no flashbacks or voice-overs. The scene ends when the killer puts the picture of his next victim on the wall.
  

Liam

Inspiration: Scream

As a group we found that 'Scream's' opening sequence is really successsful. We are all really inspired by the twist on Propp's theory of character roles and the adaptation of Todorov's narrative structure.

• The opening sets up expectation that the victim character in the opening is going to be the heroine of the film as a convention of openings is to introduce main characters. As a result of this expectation the audience is therefore really shocked when she dies. She in fact takes the role of a false hero. This enables sooooo much suspense to be formed in the opening with many action and enigma codes such as the telephone conversation, and is a really successful technique which we all would love to incorporate into our own opening.

• The opening also changes the conventional narrative structure of introducing a state of equilibrium before a disequilibrium, followed by a new equilibrium. Although there is a momentary state of equilibrium the purpose of the opening and in context with the whole film, the disequilibrium is shown. This allows a greater use of Barthes' action and enigma codes through aspects of mise-en-scene, characters, and camera work. Therefore the opening is more suspenseful and helps to set up expectations and themes of the film quickly. We all love this idea and are planning to start at this stage in Todorov's theory.

'Scream's' opening sequence highlights themes similar to ours such as...kidnap, murder, obsession, isolation, and serial killing.

On the whole Scream has a great opening sequence and and in relation to iconography, the fact it is in a domestic setting adds to the realism of the opening which allows it to directly appeal to the current audience-before it plays on their fears.

As we are producing a 'psychological thriller' this is a technique we are going to use. We plan to subvert some of teh classic thriller theroies in a similar way that 'Scream' has hopefully making ours just as successful or possibly even more so!

The hysterical acting nearer the end was also extremely successful in showing character emotion and very inspirational. I truly think that this would work fantastically for our opening thriller sequence and I think this could be adapted to show even greater isolation and fear by muting her screams- i.e the audience only watches the visuals. This would take the audience momentarily out of the action but they would actually want to be involved and want to help the victim. A technique i personally think is fantastic.

Matt

Tuesday 4th December

Today we had 2 hours and we watched and captured out good shots and then started to put a rough cut together. One problem was the colours of the shots - it chages constantly from bluey to sunny, but we can easily overcome this by using contrast.
There was also another problem; we have to shoot some tighter framed shots because it jumps from POVs to ELS/LSs - and we thougth we could use this for effect but it just doesn't look right, so we will have to create some more shots in our re-shoot.

We also realised that for the poloroid photos the picture of his 'new' girl that he puts up can't really be tied up because then that doesn't leave much open for the rest of the film - i.e. he has already caught her so why didn't he just kill her (or 'cross her out') when he did lara.
However, if we used photos of all the girls just doing ordinary things (e.g. walking down the road) - as if he was stalking them, we wouldn't be able to anchor the white dress he uses for all his victims.
So we decided it would pan across to a photo of Lara doing something normal, and over the top he would put a photo of her gagged and then he would cross it out, then he would put up a photo of the new girl doing something normal. Therefore each girl has 2 photos, one from before they are caught and one from after.

Targets met from last meeting: Alix is getting poloroid film tonight

Targets set: Look further into contrast to change colouring of shots

Alix

Monday 3rd December

Today we had a short meeting in our lesson and we just watched back our footage, most of it was good and usable but there are still a few shots we need to reshoot - for example the POVs, sometimes just don't match up to where she ran. We aslo started to organise the poloroid photos of the tied up girls.
There is also a problem with weather this weekend for us to finish our shoot, 60% chance of rain on saturday and 20% on sunday. However if we leave it until sunday and risk it, and then it does rain we will have to reshoot everything that day, which would be impossible as Lara would get even colder in the rain - and she couldnt do everything last weekend in the sun.

Targets set: Alix to get poloroid film

Alix

Shooting weekend

Shooting weekend: December 1st-2nd

December 1st we carried out our main shooting session, where we made successful attempts at our finl shots. Using a quality control check after all shots we believe most of the shots taken are at a high standard and those which are not will be reshot next weekend. As all of us in the group were out to achieve the highest standards of camera work, shooting was much longer than anticipated. This factor, accompanied with the freezing weather conditions meant that shooting was postponed as our actress was so freezing and began to feel poorly. It would have been ridiculous to make her stay throughout these conditions, and more than this the quality of acting would/was beginnning to deteriorate. Although not every shot was completed we feel as a group that shots taken were infact of a good quality (sometimes we took 10 takes just to get the right camera work and acting!). From this we as a group feel that next week we must firstly film the remaining shots in this outdoor location even if the weather conditions are inappropriate, and secondly to reshoot the least successful shots taken this weekend.

On 2nd december, we as a group are not able to shoot anymore of the opening sequence. This is because it is forecast to rain all day (which it did!), and our actress desperately needed to leave the shoot at 9.45am. This would have meant that from sunrise we would have had roughly an an hour and a half, in which to shoot in undesired conditions.

Problems from this shooting weekend were as follows:

• the weather conditions (freezing and then a full day of rain)


• time taken between shots was too long that not all shots were completed


• the actress could not perform a 'fall' in the way the group all desired


• the sun shone brightly and then was clouded over (a very dark sky)


• due to the time taken to quality control all shots, it meant the actor (villain) was not needed til much later in the day- although he seemed to enjoy the time away from studying and liked to give his opinion as a viewer.


• there were many distractions and many people in some shots as the park was full of dog walkers, runners, walkers, families, children on bikes etc. This meant the shooting was delayed further.

Here is an example of some of the shot logging we did to make it easier for us to know which shots to upload to the comptuer.

Matt, Liam