Main task preparations

Since the last lesson I have been considering a feasible narrative for our film. I have also been making changes to my Alfred Hitchcock case study and as well as coming up with the story line, I have also been considering a good thriller film to analyse that ties in with the concept of our film.
For our main task we want to demonstrate thriller conventions also with intertextual references to what is usually identified with female characters in thriller films by the audience. As in 'the birds' there has been a few issues I have raised about the representation of women and Alfred Hitchcock's methods of filming and the way in which he creates suspense through characters and situations.
Since my last entry Opal and I in Tuesday's lesson have discussed our narrative and today I have modified what we initially agreed on. I feel that we need to a Psychological, Romance thriler, the main charcater is going to be a young female woman. We want to represent her as a classy buisness woman whoose life was going well for her until she was until her relationship with her boyfriend chaneged and he became obsessive. Her boyfriend is jealous of her high class status in society. He became overtime obsessed with her.
The film will start with tracking of this female character running in a field (park) with non-diegetic classical music whilst she is running to a source of light. Both of these components are supposed to symbolise her running away from her obsessed boyfrined and her now unhappy life. This is unknown to the viewer and will be woundering what is going on. We plan to have a voiceover of this character talking about her life. The next scene will show her working in a office and then some sort of attack or warning from her boyfriend.
We will experiment with camera angles using high angles and low angles. We would plan to do close-up shots to show heightened tension within the character but our intial concept was to create confusion and anticipation from the viewer. I am going to analyse 'The eye' before the next lesson and work on my analytical skills. As well as starting and completing the storyboards.

Main task planning

Since last week I have changed the color scheme of my website simulation from red and black,grey to black and grey. I feel that this new color scheme is much more dark and dreary whereas the red color was much more likely to symbolize the horror genre, or death within horror films. I feel that changing the color to black makes it relate more to the subtlety that my preliminary task narrative consists of and allows me to be more flexible for the main task.
Today Opal and I discussed with our teacher a outline for the narrative of our main task film. We wanted to make it a psychological/action thriller it is quite different from films that our already out or should I say conventional narratives. It is important that through this film we show how psychological illnesses is demonstrated.
It starts with a girl running in a field, through editing we will slow this frame down. We also want to experiment with different camera angles so Opal and I want to do some tracking. As the woman featuring in this film is going to be in the photography profession so there is going to be a high angle of a woman lying on the floor with poured pills on the floor from this the audience can infer that she has taken an overdose. So far we are still working on the rest of the narrative but are feeling confident with this starting point.

Preparations

Today in the lesson I was able to download adobe fireworks,I have also found images to go on my website presentation,and will be following up by watching the opening sequence of 'Orphan' and write a case study about it, I will then do a case study on 'The birds'. By the end of the week I should have completed my case studies,a shot list of the preliminary including the locations shot types, characters and props.

Post- Preliminary task film production

Filming on Wednesday and Thursday the 11th and 12th January went quite smoothly. Through the mise en scene and props we managed to convey the codes and conventions of thriller films.We also experimented with a variety of different shots which would provide more options to choose from when it comes to editing and adding sound. We have found the soundtrack and by Tuesday the animatic should be completed.In the mean time I will be looking for pictures to go on my website. What was good about our preliminary production was that we managed to take in turns the responsibility of filming different angles and we did not restrict ourselves to just using the tripod.

Editing training

Today our teacher took us for Adobe Premiere Pro training I have previously worked on Imovie but this was a different experience. Once we got taught how the programme works, we then edited a pre-filmed 'tutorial' where we cropped and added transitions and effects. Following that we got into groups and were given two mini-prescribed tasks and which had to consist of shot reverse and the 180 degree rule,this was so that we had practice experimenting with the shots. After today I feel confident to film tomorrow and because we have been able to have the practice of the prescribed camera techniques before doing it properly.

Saturday 7th November 2009

Recently I have been analysing the plot to make sure that our film shows exactly what it is that we are trying to represent.We needed to check whether it addresses our primary and secondary audience and if not how to address them. As well as thinking of those things, we have been trying to find an appropriate location and suitable actors. We organized with an Art teacher to use our Sixth Form's Photography room after school from Wednesday onwards this room is suitable because it is dark and connotes the frightening mise en scene we are looking for. It also contrasts with the child who at first seems innocent; innocence is a typical characteristic passive viewers associate with children. Our teacher has planned for us to get editing training on the Adobe premiere Software and after the session on Tuesday 10th November we will be able to start filming from then on. This week Opal and I have been planning our production so far I have written out the script for our two actors who are drama students so that they can prepare their lines; and I have given them a brief summary about the narrative and what we are trying to represent in the film. Opal and I have found the soundtrack although we might change it later on before we come to edit. I have done the storyboards so that as we are filming we can tick the scenes we have done and highlight the ones we need to do.

Opal is providing the props and wardrobe for the actors. I got the idea for our film from a film I had seen called The Orphan. The narrative basically consists of a child who is not who she seems and ends up trying to kill her mother. I find this ideology very intriguing. It is connoting the loss of innocence within the child the child is here shown to be manipulative and vindictive. So for our film I decided that I wanted not show a revengeful child, showing binary opposites within the child between innocence and subtle bitterness, with the mother character I wanted to show through her talking to the painting her unconscious frustration with the child and also at the end when she sees her painting at it says 'You killed me mummy' you see that she is unconsciously guilty.

The first shot of our film is a slightly ajar door with a little bit of light piercing we are showing binary opposition which creates an element of mystery and wonder within the viewer. Although we have a prescribed task we are going to try and use as much as interesting shot types to sustain suspense within the viewer also through the different shot types we want a particular emotion to be captured.

Also in yesterday's lesson I took pictures of our storyboards with a digital camera and I uploaded them onto Windows Movie Maker, we then found a potential soundtrack and downloaded it and edited over our animatic.

Preliminary task - Mise en scene costume

We used Red hair ribbons in order to portray the innocence of the child character. As red commonly signifies danger, and this reflects the subtle vengefulness seen in our child character

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We used talcum powder for the child character, played by Kayda Ismajli. To accurately project the idea that she is dead.


We used eye liner for Kayda to match the codes and conventions of how ghosts are represented in thriller films.

We used a apron to the further define the mother character as an art teacher.We also used White plimsolls, with paint splattered on them so that the audience can infer that the female actor works on her art for long periods of time