Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Monday, 22 March 2010
Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?
My product represents two particular groups. The first being young girls. The young girl in my film is represented as a victim who has been kidnapped and is suffering from abuse. Other films which have a child victim include, ‘The Orphanage’ which our idea was originally based around. ‘The Others’ which deals with children within a big country house and Hide and Seek’ which is about a father and daughter who move to the country, when the child makes an imaginary friend she starts behaving strangely. These three films deal with issues about children which we have tried to cover within our film which represents some lives of young children who are victims of abuse today. For example Baby P, who was a victim of abuse in which social services failed to pick up on. We were influenced by this in our desire to represent young people.
The second social group which my product represents is men with serious mental heath problems in his 20’s. The man within my film is represented as a psychopath. Psychopath men also feature in ‘Friday 13th’ in which the psychopathic man tortures and murders people in gruesome ways. In Psycho’ there is a man who is mentally insane who believe that he is his mother and. He attracts people to his hotel and dressed up as his mother and kills people. Psychopaths are not a demographic because there is not way of quantifying who is a psychopath until they are caught for their crimes. We tried to portray this in our own film where we used a man dressed in normal clothes who appeared as normal as possible. This is because there is no definitive way of representing a psychopath.
In the newspapers at the moment there is a convicted child killer called Jon Venables. He was only a child himself when he tortured and killed a young boy. In another article, a man called Peter Chapman raped and murdered a teenager. Both these articles link to my media product as we deal with the issue of abuse to young children. The men are demonised for the acts which they have committed which are horrendous crimes. In another case, a young boy has been kidnapped. This relates to my media product in the way that in my film, a young girl has been kidnapped. The Madeline McCann case is another example of a child being kidnapped which also relates to my media product. The newspapers made a moral panic out of these acts and they have prominently been featured in newspapers for many months. In our product, we tried to make drama out of the kidnapping as this is a common feature in horror films. As I have seen so much information about the McCanns and Jamie Bulger case in the newspapers I was influenced by this in deciding how to represent the social group of children in my film. Children are represented as innocent victims in the press and this is how were wanted to represent the young girl in our product. However, as I have seen the killer of Jamie Bulger was a child himself so this isn’t always the case and the media make a moral panic out of this and created a folk devil out of the horror film 'Child’s Play'.
The second social group which my product represents is men with serious mental heath problems in his 20’s. The man within my film is represented as a psychopath. Psychopath men also feature in ‘Friday 13th’ in which the psychopathic man tortures and murders people in gruesome ways. In Psycho’ there is a man who is mentally insane who believe that he is his mother and. He attracts people to his hotel and dressed up as his mother and kills people. Psychopaths are not a demographic because there is not way of quantifying who is a psychopath until they are caught for their crimes. We tried to portray this in our own film where we used a man dressed in normal clothes who appeared as normal as possible. This is because there is no definitive way of representing a psychopath.
In the newspapers at the moment there is a convicted child killer called Jon Venables. He was only a child himself when he tortured and killed a young boy. In another article, a man called Peter Chapman raped and murdered a teenager. Both these articles link to my media product as we deal with the issue of abuse to young children. The men are demonised for the acts which they have committed which are horrendous crimes. In another case, a young boy has been kidnapped. This relates to my media product in the way that in my film, a young girl has been kidnapped. The Madeline McCann case is another example of a child being kidnapped which also relates to my media product. The newspapers made a moral panic out of these acts and they have prominently been featured in newspapers for many months. In our product, we tried to make drama out of the kidnapping as this is a common feature in horror films. As I have seen so much information about the McCanns and Jamie Bulger case in the newspapers I was influenced by this in deciding how to represent the social group of children in my film. Children are represented as innocent victims in the press and this is how were wanted to represent the young girl in our product. However, as I have seen the killer of Jamie Bulger was a child himself so this isn’t always the case and the media make a moral panic out of this and created a folk devil out of the horror film 'Child’s Play'.
Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A media institution refers to the organizations that provide media content and supply the context within which media products are produced. They represent how media is financed and generate profit and the processes of media production themselves. Examples of media institutions include The BBC which is a public service broadcaster which means that they are funded by the government and the tax payers and News International which is a big international media institution owned by Rupert Murdock.
The kind of media institution which would distribute my group’s media product would be ‘Film Four’. This is because Film Four don’t have a lot of money and this would be ideal as my film is a low budget will. They have made films such as ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ which is about children and poverty in India. It has a gross revenue of $377,417,293 and they co-produced ‘In Bruges’ which is a Black Comedy about Hit men. This shows me that the media institution is open to all types of films for different types of audiences. This is because they are one off the biggest British Institutions and therefore they have a good name for themselves, they have some money to spend and have very good equipment for shooting as well as editing and have the ability to advertise a lot more because they have more money and better resources.
If I could sell my product to an American institution, I would use ‘Lionsgate Films’ because they have made films such as ‘Hostel’ which has a gross revenue of $80,578,934 which is another example of a horror movie. This film had a budget of $4.8 million which is low budget and therefore there are similarities between hostel and ours. Not only in terms of genre but also in terms of money we would want to use on our film if it were made by Hollywood. 'Lionsgate Films' typically target male horror/thriller fans, which conforms to my media product. Due to the fact that they make medium budget features and have more money to spend through the success of the Saw franchise and Hostel they will have more money to spend on press and advertising which in turn could benefit our film as it would have more chance of a success.
Task 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience would be males of working class and middle class between 15 and 24 years old and possibly females’ around the same age be cause they often get taken to the cinema by their boyfriends. My horror movie contains two actors, one 20 year old man and one 10 year old girl. This provides a pathway for connection from the audience as my audiences are of similar age to the actors. Horror films may appeal more people who listen to the genre metal music as a lot of this genre is featured within these films. For example, Rob Zombie who used to be in a heavy metal band called White Zombie and has directed films of the Horror/Thriller genre such as ‘House of 1000 Corpses’, and the remake of ‘Halloween’.
My secondary audience of horror fans is 25 and 34. Another film which my target audience would go to see would be Saw, the budget was $1,200,000 and the gross revenue was $103,096,345. This shows there is a target audience for my film which suggests my film could make money. My target audience of 15 – 24 year old mainly males have more free time, more disposable income and are also the main target audience of all Hollywood films for these reasons. I would target my film at people who have these qualities and who like ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Others’ as they would be the likely audience for my thriller/horror subgenre. ‘The Orphanage’ is very similar to our film’s original idea. Even though we have changed a lot of things in our film, the background storyline is still very similar to our end idea.
Task 7: Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product.
Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product.
Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to our final media product. To start with, the planning of our final product was more in depth and complicated because we had to come up with a narrative and work out who was performing each role compared to our preliminary task in which we were given a narrative and no one had a particular role, everyone did a bit of everything. Also with our preliminary task we were given a storyboard, and with our final product task we had to draw out our own storyboard.
With our preliminary task, we planned for approximately one week before the shoot day and edited our product in one week, however, in preparation for our final media product we had 6 weeks to plan before the shoot day and edited for about 3 - 4 weeks afterwards.
I feel that my film making skills have developed a lot since the prelim task. This is because our brief for our prelim consisted of wide, mid and close up shots and in my thriller sequence we were not given any specific shots to shoot. We shot what we felt was right and what we felt fitted with our narrative. In our prelim task we had help from our media teacher to frame the shots and we were assisted almost all the way as this was supposed to be a task to help us learn for our final media product. However, in our Thriller, we had very little help from our media teacher as we knew by now what we had to achieve and how we had to do it.
Our camera work has improved since the prelim task as before we were given a storyboard, which was the same as everyone else doing media in AS at Hurtwood House. However in our Thriller, we used much more sophisticated shots, including tracking shots which are when the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform and pushed on rubber tracks while filming, panning shots, which are when the camera is put on a stationary tripod and moves horizontally left to right and right to left. and tilt shots which are when the camera is put on a stationary tripod and moves vertically up to down and down to up. We were able to put together a rough cut of our prelim task in about ten minutes. However, our final media product took approximately one hour to put together a rough cut. In our prelim task, we used final cut but not to the extent that we used it in our final media product. In our thriller, we used final cut to add the title sequence throughout which listed the names of people involved with either making the thriller or acting in the thriller. In our thriller, we were more concerned about not crossing the 180 degree line, as we wanted our thriller to be as professional as possible.
The sound we used in our basic prelim task was dramatically different to our final media product. In our prelim task, we used dialogue following the storyboards we were given and any other ambient sound whilst recording. In our final media product, we cut out a lot of ambient sound and added in a lot of foley work produced by foley artists using soundtrack pro. For example, the drone sound we used throughout our sequence and the sound used at the end of our sequence when the title appears. This demonstrates sophistication compared to our prelim task when we did not add titles. However, we kept the ambient sound as our actor walked down the spiral stairs as we thought this was very good and fitted with the thriller genre.
In my prelim task, the lighting we used was very basic, we simply had one light bulb and we were not concerned about using any one light. However, in my final media product, we used a range of different lighting including the light bulb, key lights, both on the exterior of Leith Hill and walking down the spiral staircase, we used this to create shadows to make it more like a thriller. Also, we used candles to light our set as we wanted to create more of a thriller atmosphere than in our prelim task.
Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to our final media product. To start with, the planning of our final product was more in depth and complicated because we had to come up with a narrative and work out who was performing each role compared to our preliminary task in which we were given a narrative and no one had a particular role, everyone did a bit of everything. Also with our preliminary task we were given a storyboard, and with our final product task we had to draw out our own storyboard.
With our preliminary task, we planned for approximately one week before the shoot day and edited our product in one week, however, in preparation for our final media product we had 6 weeks to plan before the shoot day and edited for about 3 - 4 weeks afterwards.
I feel that my film making skills have developed a lot since the prelim task. This is because our brief for our prelim consisted of wide, mid and close up shots and in my thriller sequence we were not given any specific shots to shoot. We shot what we felt was right and what we felt fitted with our narrative. In our prelim task we had help from our media teacher to frame the shots and we were assisted almost all the way as this was supposed to be a task to help us learn for our final media product. However, in our Thriller, we had very little help from our media teacher as we knew by now what we had to achieve and how we had to do it.
Our camera work has improved since the prelim task as before we were given a storyboard, which was the same as everyone else doing media in AS at Hurtwood House. However in our Thriller, we used much more sophisticated shots, including tracking shots which are when the camera is mounted on a wheeled platform and pushed on rubber tracks while filming, panning shots, which are when the camera is put on a stationary tripod and moves horizontally left to right and right to left. and tilt shots which are when the camera is put on a stationary tripod and moves vertically up to down and down to up. We were able to put together a rough cut of our prelim task in about ten minutes. However, our final media product took approximately one hour to put together a rough cut. In our prelim task, we used final cut but not to the extent that we used it in our final media product. In our thriller, we used final cut to add the title sequence throughout which listed the names of people involved with either making the thriller or acting in the thriller. In our thriller, we were more concerned about not crossing the 180 degree line, as we wanted our thriller to be as professional as possible.
The sound we used in our basic prelim task was dramatically different to our final media product. In our prelim task, we used dialogue following the storyboards we were given and any other ambient sound whilst recording. In our final media product, we cut out a lot of ambient sound and added in a lot of foley work produced by foley artists using soundtrack pro. For example, the drone sound we used throughout our sequence and the sound used at the end of our sequence when the title appears. This demonstrates sophistication compared to our prelim task when we did not add titles. However, we kept the ambient sound as our actor walked down the spiral stairs as we thought this was very good and fitted with the thriller genre.
In my prelim task, the lighting we used was very basic, we simply had one light bulb and we were not concerned about using any one light. However, in my final media product, we used a range of different lighting including the light bulb, key lights, both on the exterior of Leith Hill and walking down the spiral staircase, we used this to create shadows to make it more like a thriller. Also, we used candles to light our set as we wanted to create more of a thriller atmosphere than in our prelim task.
This is the basic set of our prelim task. We had one light bulb, one door and one window, which had a blue screen behind. We edited a cityscape on to this screen. We had no props and the floor did not fit with the overall set.
This is a screen grab from my final media product. It is evident that we have props, a different source of lighting, and have added title. Using these technical features, it makes our media product look professional.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Audience Feedback
From showing people in school our thriller, we asked them for feedback. This is the feedback we received:
Tom Barton – very suspenseful
Clare Dodkins – I liked the pace of editing as it un-nerved the audience and tightened the tension of the piece
Will Berril – very dramatic Leaya Hatzakis – cast perfectly, great choice of location.
Lara Kufferath – I liked the way of creating tension with the use of silence
Dan Ash – nice contrast between Alabama and Berika, also according to status. I liked the mask and the mise-en-scene. The basement gave a nice contrast. Alabama reinforced the society we live in with children getting captured, and the canted angle shots of Berika gave a sense of peculiar.
Tom Warhurst - scary, holds suspense and good choice of actress.
Lottie Avery - holds up, good suspense. A good climax at the end.
Ruby Kammer - I like the suspense and tension all the way through and then the ‘boom’ of the revelation of the girl.
Tom Barton – very suspenseful
Clare Dodkins – I liked the pace of editing as it un-nerved the audience and tightened the tension of the piece
Will Berril – very dramatic Leaya Hatzakis – cast perfectly, great choice of location.
Lara Kufferath – I liked the way of creating tension with the use of silence
Dan Ash – nice contrast between Alabama and Berika, also according to status. I liked the mask and the mise-en-scene. The basement gave a nice contrast. Alabama reinforced the society we live in with children getting captured, and the canted angle shots of Berika gave a sense of peculiar.
Tom Warhurst - scary, holds suspense and good choice of actress.
Lottie Avery - holds up, good suspense. A good climax at the end.
Ruby Kammer - I like the suspense and tension all the way through and then the ‘boom’ of the revelation of the girl.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Evaluation of my Post Production
Editing my final task was much more complex and sophisticated than my prelim task. For our thriller, we used order of shots and use of shots along with sound effects to tell the narrative, where as with our prelim task, we used dialogue alone to tell the narrative.
Editing our thriller took about 3 – 4 weeks and in this time we choose our use of shots, including close ups, to emphasise the narrative of our thriller. We used tracking shots to show continuity, and tilt shots to build up tension. For our thriller we had to be careful about the editing process as the use and length of shots, and the order in which they have been placed controlled the pace of our thriller. We had to get the pace of out thriller correct as it changes the style of the product.
We used a blend of close shots revealing very little and fast cuts to surprise the audience. This is because we wanted to create a mood where the audience would know very little about the thriller at points and then be surprised and this is what makes the audience want to carry on watching.
We used foley work to make the sound more emphasised and thriller-like. We used these diegetic sound effects along with some of the ambient sound from the shoot day. We used the drone sound throughout the sequence to enhance the realism of the thriller genre. We enhanced the sound of the footsteps to create tension. However, we used the ambient sound of the shoot day of the trap door opening as this is more authentic and sounded great.
Titles used throughout our sequence were put in an order like in other thriller films. We used a made up distributor ‘a Storm Cunningham film’ and a made up production company ‘Milano Productions’ to make it more professional and more like other films. We used a pace which kept with the mood and pace of our film as we did not want to break the tension because a thriller is supposed to have lots of tension and suspense. We wanted to choose the right size and font of our titles to emphasis importance using larger font and we used a childish looking text to create suspense and show that we are using a captured child within our sequence.
I feel that we have made the right choices to appeal to our target audience because we use dark thriller music which fits with our narrative and the pace of our film controlled by our use and length of shots fits to make the mood of a thriller film. This would ensure that our target audience would watch the film because we have made it like other thriller films using professional thriller techniques. We felt that we created the right amount of tension and drama needed for a thriller in our use of shots and choice of nondiegetic music. We were trying to capture the essence of other thriller such as ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Others’ which also used similar shot choices and music to create narrative.
Editing our thriller took about 3 – 4 weeks and in this time we choose our use of shots, including close ups, to emphasise the narrative of our thriller. We used tracking shots to show continuity, and tilt shots to build up tension. For our thriller we had to be careful about the editing process as the use and length of shots, and the order in which they have been placed controlled the pace of our thriller. We had to get the pace of out thriller correct as it changes the style of the product.
We used a blend of close shots revealing very little and fast cuts to surprise the audience. This is because we wanted to create a mood where the audience would know very little about the thriller at points and then be surprised and this is what makes the audience want to carry on watching.
We used foley work to make the sound more emphasised and thriller-like. We used these diegetic sound effects along with some of the ambient sound from the shoot day. We used the drone sound throughout the sequence to enhance the realism of the thriller genre. We enhanced the sound of the footsteps to create tension. However, we used the ambient sound of the shoot day of the trap door opening as this is more authentic and sounded great.
Titles used throughout our sequence were put in an order like in other thriller films. We used a made up distributor ‘a Storm Cunningham film’ and a made up production company ‘Milano Productions’ to make it more professional and more like other films. We used a pace which kept with the mood and pace of our film as we did not want to break the tension because a thriller is supposed to have lots of tension and suspense. We wanted to choose the right size and font of our titles to emphasis importance using larger font and we used a childish looking text to create suspense and show that we are using a captured child within our sequence.
I feel that we have made the right choices to appeal to our target audience because we use dark thriller music which fits with our narrative and the pace of our film controlled by our use and length of shots fits to make the mood of a thriller film. This would ensure that our target audience would watch the film because we have made it like other thriller films using professional thriller techniques. We felt that we created the right amount of tension and drama needed for a thriller in our use of shots and choice of nondiegetic music. We were trying to capture the essence of other thriller such as ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Others’ which also used similar shot choices and music to create narrative.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Account of Shoot Day
Account of our Shoot Day
On Thursday 21st, we had our shoot day for our horror/thriller film. When we arrived at the studio we were very nervous and unsure of how our day would progress.
We set up how we wanted the set to be and Tom suggested. To create the right mise-en-scene and make the set look realistic, we added wax candles to the table and put them on nails in the floor. We also put a bit of mud and a few leaves over Alabama’s white dress and over the white bed sheets to give them an older looking effect. We created this mise-en-scene in order to relate more to our target audience of fans of the horror/thriller genre. An example of a film which gave us inspiration was ‘The Ring’.
As our actors arrived to the studio we made them feel comfortable and then I took the girl ‘Alabama Jackson’ to put on makeup to make her look pale and really tired and drained. I put very light foundation over her face and dark brown eye liner around her eyes. I also knotted her hair by backcombing it to look more realistic and as if she had been there for a couple of days. This is to reinforce the horror/thriller genre of film which we were making, as this is stereotypical of the look of this kind of film. An example of this is in the films ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Ring’ where they use young girl to this effect. Then we walked them through what was supposed to happen in the thriller.
The aims of our shoot were to get the shots done in good time to deadline. Also, to get Alabama Jackson to act for us, this was difficult as she had school; however we were very lucky as she could take a day off of school. Lastly, and very importantly, we wanted our group to work well and cooperate with each other as it would have been a disaster without this. Tom was the main cameraman, Storm was the main director assisted by Steph and I was on lighting and helping with Alabama rehearse as she was so young she needed additional help.
Our major location was the studio, as we thought this might create the right mise-en-scene for our horror/thriller. However we also used the interior location of Hurtwood Corridor trap door and an exterior location of Leith Hill. We used the locations to create greater suspense and as they fitted with the gothic look we wanted. The shooting during the studio was done to deadline, and in the Hurtwood trap door, it helped us create the additional level of suspense needed for our thriller.
However, by the time we had got to the exterior of Leith Hill it had got a bit darker than we would have liked. However, we are going to look back at the footage and re-shoot another evening if necessary.
Our casting went well however, on the day of the shoot we were unsure whether we would be able to use Alabama Jackson, however, this was not a problem, even though she was our preferred actress, we had a back up actress of a girl in the school. Props issues consisted of the candles burning out very quickly, therefore having to replace them with the right size candle to fit in with the sequence. Also, the floor of the set had nothing on it and therefore in order to create the right mise-en-scene required for our thriller to create suspense we furnaces our set with props suitable for our target audience of horror fans. These included, grotty carpet, candles, rope a table and some dirty sheets.
The technical equipment we used was a PD 170 camera and two batteries, a mini tape, a tripod, two rubber tracks, a monitor and a lighting booth. As a group we set up the equipment all together. Tom was the main cameraman although I filmed a few shots including the Hurtwood trap door; however, I was very nervous. I also operated a lot of the lighting, which I found difficult because I had to remember how light or dark the set was in the previous shot on our storyboard. When Tom, Storm and Steph were discussing the major tracking shot, I put the tracks down.
We did not follow our story board completely as on the day we came up with additional ideas which we thought were better, more effective and would finally be more successful. These included using the candles in the way we did. Extra candles created the right ambience and additional low level lighting that we felt would benefit our thriller as they added an element of suspense. (We were originally only going to use one for Berika to hold but ended up putting them everywhere). We also didn’t do the part of the storyboard where Alabama looked like she wet herself as we thought that this could be found more comic than a thriller and she may find it uncomfortable to do this because she is only 10 years old.
One particular situation occurred, just before finishing in the Studio, Luke decided to take the candles off of the nails they were on. As Alabama went back onto set to shoot again, she forgot they were there, ran across them and really hurt herself.
This set us back in time a lot and therefore the exterior shots of Leith Hill were hard to get as it was getting much darker and the drive there was about 10 – 15 minutes. We only spent a short time there but looking at the footage, we got the shots we needed to get. We used an establishing shot and wide shot of Berika walking up to the building as we felt that this set up the right image which was typical of the thriller/horror genre and reminded us of the film ‘The Others’ which is another thriller that would appeal to the same target audience of us which was 15 – 24 year olds, mainly working class and middle class males.
We learnt from the accident which happened and we need to focus more on health and safety next time. It was similar to our preliminary task in some ways such as it was a good experience. But in general it was very because it was much more advanced as everyone had to be on the ball the whole time and know exactly what was going it. It took a lot more planning as we had a lot to organize. I think everyone worked very effectively and we enjoyed working well as a group because everyone listened to each others ideas and contributed to make our product the best we could.
On Thursday 21st, we had our shoot day for our horror/thriller film. When we arrived at the studio we were very nervous and unsure of how our day would progress.
We set up how we wanted the set to be and Tom suggested. To create the right mise-en-scene and make the set look realistic, we added wax candles to the table and put them on nails in the floor. We also put a bit of mud and a few leaves over Alabama’s white dress and over the white bed sheets to give them an older looking effect. We created this mise-en-scene in order to relate more to our target audience of fans of the horror/thriller genre. An example of a film which gave us inspiration was ‘The Ring’.
As our actors arrived to the studio we made them feel comfortable and then I took the girl ‘Alabama Jackson’ to put on makeup to make her look pale and really tired and drained. I put very light foundation over her face and dark brown eye liner around her eyes. I also knotted her hair by backcombing it to look more realistic and as if she had been there for a couple of days. This is to reinforce the horror/thriller genre of film which we were making, as this is stereotypical of the look of this kind of film. An example of this is in the films ‘The Orphanage’ and ‘The Ring’ where they use young girl to this effect. Then we walked them through what was supposed to happen in the thriller.
The aims of our shoot were to get the shots done in good time to deadline. Also, to get Alabama Jackson to act for us, this was difficult as she had school; however we were very lucky as she could take a day off of school. Lastly, and very importantly, we wanted our group to work well and cooperate with each other as it would have been a disaster without this. Tom was the main cameraman, Storm was the main director assisted by Steph and I was on lighting and helping with Alabama rehearse as she was so young she needed additional help.
Our major location was the studio, as we thought this might create the right mise-en-scene for our horror/thriller. However we also used the interior location of Hurtwood Corridor trap door and an exterior location of Leith Hill. We used the locations to create greater suspense and as they fitted with the gothic look we wanted. The shooting during the studio was done to deadline, and in the Hurtwood trap door, it helped us create the additional level of suspense needed for our thriller.
However, by the time we had got to the exterior of Leith Hill it had got a bit darker than we would have liked. However, we are going to look back at the footage and re-shoot another evening if necessary.
Our casting went well however, on the day of the shoot we were unsure whether we would be able to use Alabama Jackson, however, this was not a problem, even though she was our preferred actress, we had a back up actress of a girl in the school. Props issues consisted of the candles burning out very quickly, therefore having to replace them with the right size candle to fit in with the sequence. Also, the floor of the set had nothing on it and therefore in order to create the right mise-en-scene required for our thriller to create suspense we furnaces our set with props suitable for our target audience of horror fans. These included, grotty carpet, candles, rope a table and some dirty sheets.
The technical equipment we used was a PD 170 camera and two batteries, a mini tape, a tripod, two rubber tracks, a monitor and a lighting booth. As a group we set up the equipment all together. Tom was the main cameraman although I filmed a few shots including the Hurtwood trap door; however, I was very nervous. I also operated a lot of the lighting, which I found difficult because I had to remember how light or dark the set was in the previous shot on our storyboard. When Tom, Storm and Steph were discussing the major tracking shot, I put the tracks down.
We did not follow our story board completely as on the day we came up with additional ideas which we thought were better, more effective and would finally be more successful. These included using the candles in the way we did. Extra candles created the right ambience and additional low level lighting that we felt would benefit our thriller as they added an element of suspense. (We were originally only going to use one for Berika to hold but ended up putting them everywhere). We also didn’t do the part of the storyboard where Alabama looked like she wet herself as we thought that this could be found more comic than a thriller and she may find it uncomfortable to do this because she is only 10 years old.
One particular situation occurred, just before finishing in the Studio, Luke decided to take the candles off of the nails they were on. As Alabama went back onto set to shoot again, she forgot they were there, ran across them and really hurt herself.
This set us back in time a lot and therefore the exterior shots of Leith Hill were hard to get as it was getting much darker and the drive there was about 10 – 15 minutes. We only spent a short time there but looking at the footage, we got the shots we needed to get. We used an establishing shot and wide shot of Berika walking up to the building as we felt that this set up the right image which was typical of the thriller/horror genre and reminded us of the film ‘The Others’ which is another thriller that would appeal to the same target audience of us which was 15 – 24 year olds, mainly working class and middle class males.
We learnt from the accident which happened and we need to focus more on health and safety next time. It was similar to our preliminary task in some ways such as it was a good experience. But in general it was very because it was much more advanced as everyone had to be on the ball the whole time and know exactly what was going it. It took a lot more planning as we had a lot to organize. I think everyone worked very effectively and we enjoyed working well as a group because everyone listened to each others ideas and contributed to make our product the best we could.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)