Group 10- Shoot feedback (Saturday 2nd March)

Where, when, how, with whom did you go?

• Where- Ide Hill- house location
• When- Saturday 2^nd March
• How- By train, then car from Sevenoaks station
• With whom- Nathan Mckerlie, Adam Howland, James Stone

What was successful about the shoot? Outline any particular creative shots?

• The Tracking shot
• High/low angle shots
• Continuity editing managed to go well

What was least successful? Why?

• Filming during the day time was too hard to build atmosphere, due to the fact that it was too light even with curtains closed

How important was your story board in this filming process?

• Very in the sense that it helped us to know what we needed to film, however there was a lot of other shots we carried out as well

What will you be shooting next and when?

• Tonbridge Police station

Group 10- Opening sequence – narrative

How is the narrative organised and structured?

It is in chronological order, however at times there will be aspects used such as cross cutting to establish two lines of dialogue, as well as jump cuts to fast forward into another situation in the narrative.

How is the audience positioned in relation to the narrative?

• The audience are positioned in a perspective which overlooks the narrative of the film opening, however through the use of aspects such as POV shots incorporated within it, they are made to feel part of the action.
• At times there is a restricted view in order to create a mysterious presence when the focus is around the serial killer.

What techniques of identification and alienation are employed?

The dark and eerie colors of the protagonist help to reflect the negative representation of the serial killer, however the natural colors rather than drained help to reflect the good of the policemen.

No dialogue of the serial killer helps to enforce a eerie and mysterious character and to show he is not natural.

What are the major themes in the narrative?

• Evil
• murder
• darkness
• eeriness 

How is tension created and maintained?

• Through fast paced editing during tense situations
• Through fast paced music, however it is low pitched to create darkness
• When the serial killer is shown, no dialogue helps the audience to concentrate more, therefore reckoning visual importance
• Low key lighting in order to create over expressionistic atmosphere

AH- Questionnaire Feedback

• Our questionnaire gained a response rate of 43 people of which gave us very good insight in how effective our current ideas are, as well as aspects we can change and improve.
• We used both quantitative and qualitative data to gain feedback on our results which was effective as it gave us data we could group together, as well as more in depth data.

Some of the results are as follows:

Quantitative data:

'What gender are you?'

• As you can see from this aspect of our questionnaire we managed to get a fairly balanced response from male and female which was almost 50%, therefore it is good due to the fact that we had a good mixture of respondents.

'What category below includes your age?'

• Due to the fact that we published our questionnaire via web 2.0, over social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter we managed to gain a response from mainly a young age demographic mainly consisting of 17 year olds. This is beneficial to our production, however as we are aiming for a target audience of around this age. As you can see we also got some feedback from older respondents.

'Out of the following options which murder technique should be carried out my a murderer within our production?'

• The top technique of which our audience had chosen was for the victim to be stabbed by a knife which is the method we are going to incorpertate within our production

'What is the best title for our film?'

• The top vote for this area of the questionnaire was 'Deranged' which therefore we are going to use as the title in our production. We are relying on primary audience feedback in order to test which things will work best within our production, as in the filming industry it is important to give the consumer something they will be satisfied with and want to watch

Qualitative data:

Group 10- Planning update (sound effects and soundtrack ideas)

Within our production we are going to use various sounds which we have already begun to research.
Some are as follows:

Sound effects:

• The sound effects in this clip we may use, due to the fact that they are good for building up tension especially when reaching a climax and it would be good to use at the end of our film opening.
• We may use some of these effects within our production, espcially considering the end of our film involves a build up of sound in order to reach a climax

Group 10- Planning update (props and costume)

There are several costumes needed in our production:

Murderer-
Black Leather coat
Black trousers
Black shoes
Glasses

Detectives-
Suits
one detective with a tie, the other without to distinguish and differentiate them

Victim-
Normal casual clothes

Props-
Coffee
Chewing gum
Notepad + Pen
Map
Tools
Printed police sheets for each murder victim
A board
Table and Chair
Torch



These are pictures of some of the props we are going to use

 

Changes

 

It is evident from this that we have made changes to the props and costumes then we originally was going to use. For example instead of a white lab coat for the murderer we decided to now use a black leather jacket

Group 10- Location reccie

There are several locations of which our production will take place in both inside and outside locations.
These are as follows:

Location 1- 

• Where and when did we go? Tonbridge police station, 20th February
• What was the purpose? To see if we could get the right shots and see how it would best be framed
• What did we do? Took several shots to see how the building is best positioned
• What worked? It framed well and therefore we could fit it in
• What didn't work? At first we had trouble with cars moving too close too the camera as well as people, however we found a suitable spot where it worked effectively

Location 2-
 

• Where and when did we go? House in Ide Hill, 23rd February
• What was the purpose? To investigate whether it would be a suitable location to base our film in
• What did we do? Looked inside and outside the house to see if it was a good location to create the atmosphere needed in our film
• What worked? The house at night looked effective for a thriller film, also it is empty which creates the impression of an isolated house which too is effective in thriller films.
• What didn't work? We had no problems in this location

         

        Location 3-

• Where and when did we go? Conference room at TWGSB, 25th February 
• What was the purpose? To test whether it would be suitable to use as a police office
• What did we do? Reviewed it to see if it looked effective
• What worked? Was a good location to use as a police conference room in our production
• What didn't work? We had no problems in this location
  
  

Group 10- Planning update (Dates)

Filming recce (Saturday 23rd February):

• Inspect the location.
• Assess the health and safety risks.
• Decide where things are going to be placed and establish how we want the set to look.
• Take photographs to put on the blog to show the location.

First Filming task (Thursday 28^th February):

• Film the opening shot- the panning establishing shot of Serial killers room showing murder weapons and finishing with the killer.
• For this task we will need Adam Howland to act who is playing the serial killer and Nathan Mckerlie to film.
• This will be filmed at approximately 6 o clock in order to capture the perfect light.

Second Filming Day (Saturday 2^nd March):

• Return to the location to film the police detectives entering the house.
• Nathan Mckerlie and James Stone will be the detectives entering the house and Adam Howland again will play the Serial killer.

Third Day Filming (Thursday 7^th March):

• In school hours, filming to take place in the conference room this will act as the police station office. Actors needed Nathan Mckerlie and James Stone.
• Shot of Tonbridge police station (external) no actors needed, just filming.

JS- Production Storyboard

• This is the shot storyboard for our opening film production
• These are the main shots, however we do expect there to be several other shots embedded into our production
• These shots help to give us the main contextual information for our production in terms of the narrative, and each shot helps us to build upon the narrative, as well as work as a guideline so we know exactly what we need to film

Group 10- Wilderness Woods Feedback

Task:
Find evidence of: 2 suitable locations 

Film the following shots:

• MLS panning establishing shot
• Use of high/low angle and canted angle
• POV handicam shot
• Steady tracking shot following a character
• A character delivering dialogue in a interesting composition
• 360 pan
• ECU of detail suitable for montage

Examples of shots:



Handicam



High angle shot

establishing/panning shot

Tilt shot (upwards)



Tracking shot



Group 10- Pitch and Feedback

After completing our pitch for the production, we managed to get the green light. However, we gained more information and ideas in relation to the feedback from the audience of our presentation.

The points that were given to us our as follows:

• Consider the amount of content so that we dont have too much.
• Dont use too much dialogue as it may enable the tension to break down
• Consider the way in which the serial killers laughter sounds so that it isnt comical breaking down the plot.
• Think about the use of smoke effects for the title as it isnt relevant to the plot.

Our pitch is shown below:

AH- Film Noir Techniques

Definition (wikipedia)
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hard-boiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

What are the techniques used in Film Noir?

• Use of low key lighting which contrasts light/dark images and dramatic shadows
• Dutch angles, low angles shots, wide angle lenses.
• Reflections in mirrors of people
• Faces partially/completely obscured by darkness
• Storylines consisting of aspects such as: flashbacks and flash forwards, voiceover narration, and focusing on crime, heists or cons, false suspicion, double-crosses and accusations
• Morally flawd, misunderstoond characters, stock characters etc

AH: Audience Questionnaire

Methodology

• The purpose of our questionnaire is that it will allow us to gain feedback from a sample of people in order to give us various ideas and suggestions that we can then incorperate within our production.
•  Also it allows us to test our concept and gain insight into how our film opening idea can be improved upon.
• We created our questionnaire by devising a serious of both open and closed questions.
• Open questions will allow us to gain in deph feedback, as a form of qualitative data, therefore giving us a personal response in which the respondent can write a much broader response to the question imposed.
• Our closed questions however, will give us a specific response where the respondent chooses from a set of answers. This way we will be able to collect quantitative data, which will be useful to us due to the fact that we can sort it into numerical data (E.g by graphs as well as charts).
• Overall the questionnaire consists of questions that are related to the genre of our film: both giving us feedback on either elements to put into our film, or elements to develop/test our concept.
• The blog is being sent out by various methods such as: email, facebook, twitter, as well as some copies being printed.
• The use of web 2.0 therefore allows us to extend our sample size and hopefully gain a good respose rate, as well as reaching a much more mass audience. Also it allows us to reach out to all different demographics, rather than students within our school who are of the same gender and similar age groups.

Click the following link below to view/respond to our questionnaire:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3TJ8CPG

Group 10- Thriller Mood Board

Task: 

• To create a mood board for either Thriller or Horror Genre.

• This is our mood board for the thriller genre in which we have tried to convey the conventions of the genre and what it means to us individually. Firstly we started out by thinking of the films/trailers that have influenced us from the past or ones we have studied or looked at in research for our own project. We then went on to think about the things the different films have in common and have elaborated upon the ideas we got, which has enabled us to create our mood board.
  

  
  

JS: Technical Analysis

Task: 

• Analyse a film opening.

Casino Royale (Campbell, 2006)

Shot Number	Duration of Shot (seconds)	Camera Techniques	Mise en Scene
1	12	Low angled shot, black and white, title in the corner shows location of scene.	Snow to show that the weather is cold
2	5	Low angled shot of man	Dressed in warm expensive clothes to show the temperature and the mans wealth.
3	4	Low angled shot of lift going up.	Shows the building where the man is going is very large and emphasises his wealth.
4	3	High angled shot of the man in the lift	A posh looking lift.
5	3	Low angled shot of the floor the lift is on	The man is going towards the top of the building stereotypically where rich people live/work.
6	4	Long shot of the man walking	The interior of the building is very modern
7	8	Panning of the man’s room/office	An organised modern looking office.
8	1	Close up of man’s face	Takes his hat off as he is now indoors. Man looks surpirsed
9	1	Mid shot of the mirror	Shows that the man was looking into the mirror
10	4	Shot reverse shot of the man’s face as he turns around, the camera pans left	James Bond seen sitting in a chair opposite
11	4	Mid Shot of James bond	Dressed in more casual clothes, looks like he has been sitting there for a long time
12	3	Mid Shot of man	The man walks towards James Bond

• There is no soundtrack in this clip, but there is a lot of diagetic sound, which adds to the tension of the opening. Also there are a few sound efffects when James Bond first appears.


• I have learnt that in the opening, the audience first see the main character and the opening defines their characteristics.

NM: Technical Analysis

Task:

Analyse a title scene.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

 

Shot Number	Duration of Shot	Camera Techniques	Mise en Scene
1	12 Seconds	Grey screen is used with a text over the top, which is read out by a Narator.	Plain background, black block letters.
2	15 seconds	Panning shot from the sky down to the roof of a house.	The grey clouds faded in from the grey background. Then moves to a roof of a house which is covered by snow.
3	13 seconds	Long shot is used to establish the setting. All four characters are then framed with in the shot.	Three key characters are sat around a kitchen table whilst the protagonist is standing making a drink.
4	8 seconds	One of the other characters is the framed in a mid shot.	One of the three characters sitting around the table, addresses the lead character, she has arms folded.
5	5 seconds	The main character is framed in a mid/long shot, with his back to the audience and camera.	The lead character has his back to the audience as he makes a drink.
6	6 seconds	Shot reverse shot back to the character as seen in clip 4. However she is framed in close up this time.	She remains in the same position as in clip 4.
7	6 seconds	The main character turns around and is framed in close up. He then moves back to the table but the camera doesn’t pan.	The lead character returns to the kitchen table.
8	8 seconds	Over the shoulder shot is used of the main character, to frame a different character in mid shot.	A new character is introduced wearing a checked shirt and short brown hair.
9	12 seconds.	Cuts to the last member of the table who is framed in long shot. Lead characters face is out of focus to the right of the screen	The last member of the table is shown and he is wearing a t shirt with long black hair.