Second story board draft

This is our second draft of the storyboard, some ideas have been updated but we still need to add to them.

first story boarding

This is a quick first draft of our storyboard it has not been finished as we have changed our ideas on the structure of the sequence.

Idea for opening few shots

During our lesson yesterday we had a few ideas on how the opening scene would look, we then came up with one idea that we thought would look really good and effective. This was for the opening few shots to be following the trap back to the tent, slowly, whilst titles came up on the screen. The reason we thought this was good was so that the audience could have some background infomation and maybe a slight clue of what is happening rather than jumping to the shot of him in the tent. Secondly during this opening we could also set the scene with all the boxes, debri and clothes to indicate an apocalyse is going on. To give the opening shots a wierder feel whilst its following the trap, eerie and tense music will be added to give it a more dramatic effect.

Setting

We have come to our final descion on where abouts we are going to shoot our sequence, we have decided to use Ewhurst place which is a boarding house, we decided to use it as it is a fiarly large hallway with a big door, its not too big therefore not too impractical to set up with all the strings. I have previously put some pictures up of the house. We also have started to find and purchase different items and props for our thriller.

Thriller props

For props we need items and other things to make the inside of our setting look like there has been sort of apocalypse these may include:
- Big boxes of simple and cheap food like soup.
-Messy empty boxes.
-Messy toiletries.
-Clothes.
-Debri.

We also need props to develop the character of our character and things he does such as the trap, for this we need:
-Axe.
-White/Blue contact lense.
-Tent.
-Strings.
-Bell.
-Cans.

Trap inspiration

The idea that we wanted give off was that someone had been in the hall for a long time and waiting for something to attack. Something that would do this is a spider, and a spider web is its trap. We wanted the trap to look as if it had taken a long time to make and covers a wide space of the set, using lots of strings with cans on them. We liked the idea of a spider web just more human, so we could use strings instead.

Real life inspiration

On the way back into house a noticed that our hallway could be an effective set for our thriller, its big and wide which could easily fit a tent in and with a little help could be converted into a more creepy looking piece of space. There is also a very old looking door, which looks scary. I don know if we should use it for sure as we have not seen many other examples however i think it could work. 

Further Research

Too look into what we are interested in putting in our opening thriller, we looked at some of the most famous thrillers around. Even though the plot of the narratives were completely different some shots had interested me and i wanted to give off a similar effect with our thriller. For example i liked the idea of the character looking at himself in the mirror in a serious way, for example in the opening of American Physcho (below)

I liked the idea of the character looking and reflecting on himself, however in this sequence the mirror is way too neat and tidy. For our thriller, i think a smash and grubby idea would have a dramatic effect on the audience. I had watched other opening intros and something that also had stood out was the text used for titles and the cast, which could potentially add a big effect. In particular the titles that caught my eye was the ones in "Se7en" the reason for this was because the text was constantly moving in sudden bursts giving it an eerie effect. Also the actually font is very gritty having small but effective effect on the audience:

I think similar use of font and movement of the text would be effective, however in ours i think there should only be 3 or 4 titles rather than many as it may take the attention away from the narrative.

Inspiration

To gain some more inspiration and ideas for certain shots, items and scenarios for our thriller opening, we used the internet as a research point in which we could find new ideas. We started off by typing in words associated with our idea, for example "big scary hall" and "apocalypse" and we were able to find pictures to help us establish what we wanted the hall (setting) to look like:

We liked the idea of the hallway being rundown, messy and not looked after. Therefore giving it the effect that it had possibly not been treated for a long time portraying some sort of apocalypse. We also liked the idea of having a shot looking down the whole hallway (like above), on the other hand we thought it would be more effect if it would be wider in order to fit everything in the shot. 

We then found out some interesting things when we researched apocalypse:

Even though we were not filming anything outside, we found pictures to what we wanted to portray what was outside. For example we wanted to give off the feeling everything was run down e.g.. socialisation, buildings transport etc... To show this inside we could show lack of goods e.g. not shaving, lack of food and lack of hygiene which would connote to the audience the character had not been outside in a while and also he was not able to get hold of certain goods that normally are easy to get hold of. 

Shots

We then decided to develop each point and put a camera shot that suited it.
 
 

• The man is sleeping in the tent and a close up of his face
• A sound makes the man stir and wakes him up. From a close up shot fear is shown within his eyes
• Shot of the trap consisting of all the strings and one of them vibrating signalling there is something there
• Shot from outside the tent, his shadow being shown and we can see him picking up the axe
• He unzips the tent, close up of the tent zip
• As he stands up with the axe in his hand there will be a close up of his face showing facial scars and an odd eye (different colour) indicating he has been attacked by something
• He slowly approaches the door the bang from the door getting louder
• Close up of the mans face showing fear as he walks towards to the door
• Long shot of him walking towards the door
• Over the shoulder shot  of him standing by the door waititng
• Extreme close up of reaction face when the noise goes off.

Plot narrative and narrowing down

As our idea was a bit vague, we got together in a meeting and wanted to narrow down our ideas. We wanted the thriller to open filming the man in the tent, showing his facial features and his overall scruffines to indicate that he has been in the tent for a while, also to strengthen this idea we wanted to have many props such as empty food packets and plates. To indicate the man is hiding from something and trying to catch something we wanted to focus on the series of strings acting as the trap and have several shots of the trap with titles over the top, following the trap. We then want the man to suddenly wake up as he is hearing the trap going off, he will then get out of the tent and find an axe to use as a weapon. Slowly we want the character to walk towards where the sound is coming from, building up masses of tension until he reaches the door where the bell is going off where he will slowly reach for the door handle then there will be a loud noise followed by a black screen with the title of our film.

Character List

We decided someone to suit this role, would be adam grant, our media teacher. As he was able to grow a beard and would fit perfectly for other aspects. 

Other films

 28 days later:

One of the films that inspired us to use the idea of an a apocalypse was 28 days later. The theme that we liked in the film was that everything was run down indicating that everyone was dead and society run down. However we wanted to add our own twist to it, which is why we used the tent inside etc... however the picture above is nothing like what our set would look like so we would have to find alternatives to create the effect of an apocalypse. 

Again even though this shot is filmed outside with more space and a more recognizable area, the things that tell us that it is an apocalypse are achievable, such as the litter on the floor. This is exactly what we are planning on having around the the tent.

Character Development

As we have an idea we are happy with, we wanted to focus on smaller things to add extra effect when filmed. Firstly we wanted to develop the Character. We had some specefic ideas that included:
-Facial injury, such as scar with a different coloured eye.
-A weapon, eg. an axe.
-Boiler suit, scruffy run down.
-Beard.
-Very scared and scared personality.
-Clever.

We wanted these aspects of our character to give off the impression as if he is being hunted by something and he knows how to fight it off, however he has been injured once as we can see through the facial injuries. We are still yet to decide on what is hunting him, however we are thinking something along the lines of a viral outbreak that has killed off a large population of the world.

Group Ideas

Within my new group we have come up with one particular idea that we are happy with and want to develop. It opens with a man in a tent, we get the impression that he has been in there for a while as he is very scruffy. Outside his tent is a trap which has many detatched strings coming off, also on a wall near him is loads of photos of 'something' that is hunting him, so the audience gets the impression he is being hunted. The opening sequence will follow the man seeing the trap going off and goes to find out what it is, we are still yet to develop this idea.

Group Change

As one student from our class has left, our groups have been cheanged around. My group now consists of Owen, Frankie, Mima and myself. We work well together and develop our ideas using everyones inputs.

Ideas for thriller

To gain inspiration for finding a thriller idea we used the internet, newspapers and previous experiences to help us come up with some ideas.
 
 
 

 
 
Firstly we used the bbc news website, we looked through many different articles and decided that nothing was really beneficial, so we did not generate our idea from there.

Similarly the newspapers did nothelp us to find a story that grabbed our tension and use in our thriller.

On the otherhand we found that using previous experiences and adapting them worked very well, as everyone had been through atleast one thrilling moment in their lifetime which could be converted into an adrenaline rushing thriller. This is what we generated most of our ideas from.

Kyle Cooper

Recently i have been watching interviews and examples of Kyle Coopers work, and have observed many different techniques and tactics he uses in most of his work to make it look very visually engaging and attractive.

For example in his Apple advert the text and objects are constantly moving into different areas forming different texts, this is very good and beneficial as it keeps the audience visually engaged encouraging them to watch on, meaning they are more likely to find out and possibly buy the product. He also uses a very wide vareity of colours, rather than just sticking to two or three, again this is very effective towards the viewer as it constantly engaging them within the advert, making them more likely to carry on watching it and finding out more about the product. He also has been involved with other big companies in advertisement such as Cannon and MTV.

Moving on from adverts but still staying along the same lines, his work in movies is still very similar. He uses the same technique as in his adverts; he likes to keep everything moving. For example in the opening of super man the text is always moving, with many different big bold colours making it very visually engaging.

Through watching his interviews i get the point that he is interested in paying close to detail, he says he is interested in very small thing such as cells and body parts. This is then reflected in some of his opening material as we see cells moving around rapidly. He also points out he likes to merge what we can see with what he can make, for example he says he can film a plant then put it on a completely artificial background making it stand out more.

Moving on from kyle cooper and doing some more research and found out other title designers and intro makers that dont use all the same techniques as Kyle, for example Jaime Caliri is a title designer and he has very different ideas to Kyle. Kyle wants the opening title sequence to be very eye catching to impress the viewers and make them want to carry on, however Jaime says that he does not want start with such a big boom as it may not fit opening scenes.

So from researching Kyle cooper and other opening title editors i know how to create an entertaining opening sequence and i will keep these skills in mind while im making my opening sequence for my thriller.

Thriller Task

Video

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

What is a thriller?

A thriller is a film that uses suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements, they tend to be very andrenaline rushing. Some key feautures used in a thriller is a red herring, something that makes people think that it is relevent when it really is not. Secondly plot twists are used, these are when the plot is thrown on its back to shock the audience. Finally another key feauture is cliff hangers, where the story suddenly stops at a vital moment wanting the audience to watch on. There are three main sub-genres in the thriller department, crime, physchological and mystery thrillers. Sometimes aspects of all three can be used together for extra effect. Overall a thriller is a tense movie that gets the audience pumped and there is almost always something to find out or solve.

My group

Our groups which we are shooting our thrillers were chosen randomly, my group contains Charlie, Will , Bo and myself. Also in class today we brainstormed some of our ideas and developed the ones we thought were the best. For example the one we developed the most was based on a crazy man in a forest who comes into contact with a group of AS students shooting a documentry.

Prelim video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3HJzfF49Is

Acount of prelim (post)

Using final cut was very complicated for the first time, it was a big step up from using software such as iMovie that i had previously used to make short films. However i started to understand the tools used to cut, edit and move clips around and things became a lot easier. I also learnt that it is very important to make log bins so it is easier to find different types of shots and sounds and they are all not mixed up. The choices in the editing process were not to difficult as it did not involve in any complex shots or story line. Overall after the work we did i felt more confident using the basics of final cut, however i need to work on the more complex things on th program to create a better effect.

Short Sequence

Over the last couple of lessons we have been using the shots we filmed from our prelim and editing them together to make them look more professional. We learnt how to put them together in order and at the right time. However along the way, through looking at detail we found out what we did wrong and how we should improve it.

We started by checking in on final cut, by clicking the settings button and ticking the box check in. From this we found our folder with all our shots and loaded them up onto final cut. Because some of the shots were not as good as others and mistakes were made we made to folders, one named " " and the other " " one contained the original shots. From here we went and looked through them all seeing which ones were good and not, the ones that were good we put in the "" folder to use in our sequence. Through looking at all the shots we immediately realised that we had made a mistake, we had filmed a bit above the set so it looks fake, normally we should check and see if anything is perfect on shot.

Once we had a folder full of the shots we wanted to use including wide shots, over the shoulder shots, close ups etc.. we started putting them together. In order to get the clips onto the timeline we had to double click on the clip which will then be loaded up onto a screen, from here we needed to trim them so we did not have lots of unwanted shots. To do this we press the I key which marks where the clip will start from and then with the O key marks out and where the clip will stop. When we all decided that we were happy with the timing of the shot we dragged it onto the timeline.

This process went on for a while as we had to get the whole prelim within the short film, through this process we faced some problems. For example on some of the clips it made a blip sound where a really small piece of audio had crossed over and made this sound. To prevent this from happening we added an audio fader which silenced out this clip.

So we have sucesfully put the small clip together using many different shots.

Semiology

Semiology

When we watch films or TV, we are shown images that we can relate to and can develop our thoughts. For example what do we think of when we see a rose?  Normally roses refer to love and romance, so when we see a rose in a shot our mind tells us that there will be some romance present. Another example is a kitchen knife, when we see a kitchen knife we relate to murder and death, so again hinting us what the scene may be about.

Opening movie sequences

1. Delicatessen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtbTe52lmlc

The intro instantly tells us that the movie is about a killer as we seen him throwing down a knife on someone, so it already sets the mood. Then during the title sequence its developed as we are shown limbs and other instruments such as knifes to suggest he is a killer. Also everything seems like its a mess and dirty, with blood stains and dirt strongly suggesting that the film is about a killer. Furthermore the music brings up images of old french times showing us when the movie is set, the equitment also looks old suggesting its not a modern setting.

The titles the infomation provided is done very creatively as it tells us all the names of the people who are involved in the film in order and suggesting from the image what they did. For example on the big pieces of paper high up are the main roles and companies in the film for example actors such as Jerome Thiault and suggest they play the important roles in the film. Also companies are shown in bigger and bolder text making them stand out more for example Foundation Gan.

2. Batman, The Dark Knight Rises - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDpjSr9VhG0

Really fast moving text with dark and eye catching visuals such as smoke, broken glass and newspaper clipping all with similar texts about batman suggesting someone is researching him. There is also drawings of plans, portraying that something is being built for the batman. The music is very fast paced making this sequence a lot more dramatic and exciting.

Again the infomation is portrayed very subminimally and not too structured. For example when there are shots of pictures form newspapers it then shows a name, this clearly suggest that this is the actor. As the music builds up to the end it shows something big is coming and when it finally reaches the end the directors name is shown in big writing in the middle showing the importance of him. Also the big companies are simply shown right at the beggening with their initial logo and not linked into the context of the opening scene.

3. Panick room - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIclb4qsJI

This is the simplest of the three, yet still effective. It films a city instantly showing where it is set, and pans across different buildings. We do not find out too much action in this sequence but it simply gives us an idea where it is set.

On the otherhand the infomation is given to us really clearly as each shot shows one name of an actor or company very slowly and in huge writing, allowing us to easily read for example we know that it is a Huffland production through easily visible text and slow shots.

Analysis of favourite scene

Drag Me To Hell

The scene/sequence follows a lady through a car park
after work to find she has been followed by someone or something.

Sound

-The use of violins building up getting faster and faster has an eerie effect and builds tension.

-Clip pity clop of heels is louder than in real life which has a surreal effect on the audience.

-The sound of wind is eerie.

-The ladies scream shocks the audience.

 

Editing

-Music relates into the fast past editing making it more tense and if something is going to happen.

-Film of her looking switches to the direction she is looking at giving the audience a point of view shot.

Camera

-Camera films her from above making her look vulnerable.
-Shot of scary women looking at her and she doesn’t know.

-Close up of floating cloth makes it stand out and adds suspicion.

-Long shot of her walking alone in the car park brings up a sense of loneliness and eeriness.

 

Mise en scene

-Hardly any cars in the car park again portraying loneliness.

-Clothing of woman is smart in comparison to scary lady which is ruff, making her stand out more.

-Dark lighting creating tension.

Shooting our prelim

 We were given this storyboard and our task was to shoot the sequence using the shots shown on the sequence, we also had to add some of our own shots to add extra effect. The other part of the task was to give the dialogue some meaning using an object to portray what the characters were talking about. In our group we used the object of a condom to tell the audience that the two characters were talking about sex.

We filmed the sequence on a small set which looked like a modern living room, we also wore young and colourful clothes showing it was set in modern. In this sequence we had to film 3 specific shots, these were a wide shot, over the shoulder and a close up, plus our additional shots we took. We had to film all of these shots filming throughout the sequence so when we came to edit them they would be smooth transitions and look more realistic. The wide shot showed the full room and the two characters standing in them. The over the shoulder shot was filmed from both shoulders of each character like a point of view shot. Then the close was simply a close up of each characters face during the dialogue. For our own shots we filmed from outside the set through a curtain as if someone was looking through on them watching what they were doing. We also did a close up of the condom that we will see at the end of the sequence that will tell the audience what is going on.

Shooting our prelim was not entirely smooth and controlled, we found choosing people to do certain roles difficult and we also had some trouble with operating the camera. However after a while we became more familiar with the way in which the camera operates and also knew what we had to do individually. It didnt take long in order to understand the film language such as standby, rolling and action and we were all familiar with the terms. We ended up getting all the shots we needed, however some did not come out looking as effective as we thought they would.

As i was absent for the first week of term Matt pulled me over to the side to teach me things about the camera. He taught me how to balance the camera, using the bubble. Then i learnt how to get the white balance right by zooming in on a white object. We then learnt how to operate all the buttons on the camera such as record, on off etc...

Analysis of Kill Bill scene

Kill Bill buried alive scene

1

At this shot we can here very sinister, creepy western music which tells us something bad is happening, this is a non-diegetic sound. Also a diegetic sound is heard at this point which is the sound of the coffin banging down which again is a very harsh and creepy sound making the situation more creepy and tense.

2

At this point we start to here whimpering and panicking suggesting she is in trouble and has a dramatic effect on us. Also the music In the background is still going on, adding to the effect.

3

From this shot we here the diegetic sound of many hammers hitting the coffin, it is very repetitive which has a sinister effect as if she is going to die slowly. Once again the music in the background strengthens this effect.

4

At this point when we see nothing, the music cuts off and we can only hear her whimpers, which makes us feel as if it is over for her, it also portrays to us that she is desperete and alone with no help. It also creates a dramatic tension as we cannot see or hear anyone else but her.

5

Again we can see nothing but now we start to hear the crunching of a shovel, very close by which is loud but muffled making us feel close to her in the coffin having an eerie effect on us. Below this sound we can still hear her breathing very fast and panicking making us feel tense. Also we start to here the thumping of the dirt on the top of the coffin which tells us she is getting more burried and burried, closer and closer to death.

6

Now we can see her as she has found a torch, but she has started to cry louder which makes us feel as she has given up. She then tries to bang and get out but it doesn’t work making her seem even more vulnerable and in danger. After this shot she carries on cring into the end of this sequence.

Introduction

My name is Gil Hogarth and i am taking media at Hurtwood,  which i really enjoy. I use media alot for example i like to make short films, which i had previously won awards for in my old school for film studies GCSE. I use techniques i learn in media to make the films more effective. I also am a music producer on reason 4 and produce a vareity of things from dubstep to hip hop instrumentals. I plan to mix my media skills with my music skills during the course asthey are two things i really enjoy.