8. PLANNING - Final Draft of Storyboard

FINISHED FINAL DRAFT OF OUR STORYBOARD

This is our groups final story board which we are all happy with.
The changes that we made from out draft were that we put more detail into this one. Some of the changes that we made were finalizing how long each shot was going to be, what shot type they were going to be.
Also some changes we made were adding extra shots in and finalizing the ones we had.
Click the picture to make it bigger.

At this point we have also decided on the name of the film, which will be "Dead and Gone". We decided on this as it clearly shows what genre the film is going to be.

7. PLANNING - First Draft of Storyboard

FIRST DRAFT OF OUR STORYBOARD

This is the first draft of our storyboard that we came up after deciding on our idea and things like cast, location and props.



Click the picture to make it bigger.

6. PLANNING - Gathering Ideas For Our Film Opening

GATHERING IDEA'S FOR OUR FILM OPENING

After looking at other horror film openings and how effective they were, we decided that it was time that we devised our own idea for our film opening.
So today we came up with a rough idea of what we wanted out film opening to include

The idea was came up with was of there being a group of friends, and one girl leaves her friends, and goes into a place on her own, then gets being attacked and killed by something mysterious, and then her friends are wondering what happened to her.

After this we decided to think about things like the cast, locations, costumes, mise-en-scene, music and lighting that would be involved in our film opening


Locations
Some places that we were thinking about were those like, a forest or street, but after watching other horror films, a lot of new ones have started to use typical "safe" places to give the idea that no one is safe. So we decided that we could use a place like a house or a school. So, we decided on using our school as there is a hallway which would be a good location because it's very narrow and has leads to dark location.


Mise-En-Scene/Props
We thought that we would make some fake blood up to use, as dead bodies and blood are commonly used in horror films


Lighting
We thought that we would film when it's dark, at night, to give a scarier mood. Most locations that we looked in other horror films where most of the action happens (like killing) were usually very dark locations which would probably use artificial lighting.


Cast
We thought that in the group of friends there would be about 2 or 3 boys and one girl. The girl would be the one that goes off on her own and gets killed. We decided on this as it is stereotypically seen that females are weaker, especially in horror films.


Music
We definitely want some kind of mood building music which is typical of horror films that will be playing while the girl is just about to get attacked. We think that after looking at other horror films music is very effective in creating mood and tone.


Costumes
We thought that the main person in the film who is a girl would be wearing quite girly clothes. Also we needed a costume for the creature who kills the girl and we thought we would use black clothes and hide the identity of what it is that kills her.


We have also decided after watching other horror film openings that our target audience will be around the age group of 15-30 year olds. This is mainly because most of the film openings we watched were rated at 15's because they had violence in them, and as in our idea will contain gory scenes we thought it best to raise the age group to 15, and thought that our film wouldn't necessarily appeal to older people, so came to the conclusion that 15-30 was probably a good target audience.


After doing this we decided that we would give everyone in our group specific roles and responsibilities, even though we are all going to be involved in every process like research, filming and editing. We thought we would do this as it makes it easier for us to get everything done.


Here are the roles that we decided on:

Jack Mainly Filming and Editing

Hannah Story boarder and in charge of the clipboard during filming, and taking pictures.

Daniella Filming and in charge of the music.

Lottie Sound, Lighting and she will be "the creature" in the film.

5. RESEARCH - Watching Horror Film Openings

MORE RESEARCH FOR MAIN TASK

During our lessons on 17/02/09 and 18/02/09 we outlined some ideas for our main project of the film opening.
Firstly, as a group we have decided on a genre of Horror. The main reasons as to why we chose this, is because we believe there is a lot we can do in terms of filming, sound and location that will help us convey this genre. We also believe that there is many stereotypes that are involved with this genre that can be easily followed or broken.
We also started to gather some ideas together on what we should include in our film opening.
To help us with this ideas, we decided that we should watch some more existing film openings of horror films.
As a group we all decided that we would all look at 1-3 film openings individually, and make notes on them regarding things such as camera shots, music/sound, cast, props, locations, stereotypes, the audience they appeal to, how they appeal to the audience etc. After this we shared all our notes and discussed what we had found and how we were going to incorporate these ideas into our own film opening to make it as effective as those we watched were. The other members in the group looked at some horror film openings also but here are the film openings that I looked at and then shared with the group:

HOUSE OF WAX - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtIJPXf83lE = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)

What happens in this sequence is that a lady is making a waxwork model in the kitchen (shot 1 and 3), we are told that this is 1974 (shot 2), and ten a man comes in with a small child who is screaming and crying and covered in blood, the man and woman strap the child to the chair (shot 6) then it goes into present day (shot 9) and there are teenagers in a car.

The first thing was the Warner Brothers sign, and during this and the other signs the music was playing, this music was quite intense music, which automatically made me feel as though it was going to go straight into something intense. The screen went black after these logo's had finished, with the music playing throughout. The first scene was dated at 1974, shown in shot 2 above, as it came up on the screen to inform the audience this wasn't present day, this shows that this background to the story must be very significant for later on in the film, so it sets the audience up for something that is going to happen later on it the film. When it goes back to present day, it comes up at the bottom of the screen as shown in shot 9 in the picture above. The lighting throughout this part of the film is very dark and mysterious, and at this part, the characters faces are never seen in this part. There are 3 people, a man a woman and a child who is the victim and is seen to be being tied to a chair. The faces are never seen of these people only their bodies mostly hands and legs (can be seen in the picture). The fact that the identities of these people are unknown adds to the mystery of the scene as the audience feel as though they want to know who these people are and how they relate to the story. The editing during this part is very fast and as the tension builds up the music also starts to build up and gets faster, while still remaining creepy and sets the mood as very unnerving. The victim in this film opening is a child, and this could fit a stereotype as women and children are often seen as weaker.
Also we see that their are some teenagers which are also usually victims in horror films.
The Audience of this film is a 15 certificate, obviously because of the scenes which are not suitable for a younger audience due to the violence. This film would probably appeal to an audience of older teens like 15 to about people of 30 years old.


SCREAM - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YvxjRiY6tY = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)



What happens in this film opening is that, straight away the title of the film is shown on a black screen which red blood like writing. Next a scream is heard and a heartbeat, which are non-diegetic as the character can't hear them. This fades into the first shot which is of a telephone ringing (shot 2). A girl picks the phone up and on the phone someone tells her she is going to get killed(shot 3), she then runs around her house locking all her doors (shot 6 and 7 above).

What i noticed was that the location of this film was in a house, a typical "safe" location (shot 4), this could suggest the idea that no locations are safe and that everything is unsafe which can be seen in newer horror movies.
Also the victim is female, is could be seen as stereotypical as females are seen as weaker and therefore easier victims to be killed.
During the shot of the house from outside , i noticed that it is very dark, which also creates a scary mood. She also turns the lights off in the house which makes is scarier.
Also i noticed that the girl was quite young and possibly a teenager which is quite common in horror movies as they are usually targeted at a older teen audience.
After she is told on the phone that she is going to die and when she starts running non-diegetic music starts to play, this is very intense typical "scary movie" music to inhance the mood.
This film has a certificate of 18, which shows the audience may be from 18 to around 30. This film obviously wouldn't appeal to a younger audience, but would probably appeal more to an older teens to middle aged audience.


FINAL DESTINATION - By Daniella...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1tzn0XRTfk = Youtube link to the film opening
SOME SHOTS IN SEQUENCE: (click picture to make it bigger)

I liked the use of the title and credits in this film, i thought that we use this as a possible idea could incorporate this into our film maybe.
The first thing that appeared was a shot of a window and as it panned down the window the title of the film appeared.
As the camera panned down the window is went onto an object a name would appear and fade(shot 4 and 5), then it would fade to a new object and a new name appeared (shot 6). This carried on (shot 7, 8 and 9.)
During all this the non-diegetic music was very dark and mysterious. I thought this was an effective way of using the credits as they were appearing and fading in a mysterious way, showing objects that may be significant to the film. After the credits the music stopped some characters of the film were introduced and scene went on.
The certificate of this film is a 15, so the target audience would probably be from about 15-30. As this is a 15 it probably would appeal more to a younger teen audience rather than an older adult audience.


Some main things that i noticed from my research was:

• That usually the people involved were teenagers.
• Music was used very effectively in creating the mood.
• Dark settings

4. RESEARCH - Watching Films for the Main Task

RESEARCH FOR MAIN TASK

During our lessons on the 10/02/09 and 12/02/09 As we had finished our preliminary task, and shown it to our teacher who decided that it was good enough, we started the first phase of our main task - the research and planning. As we have not yet decided on any part of our film opening, to get some ideas about the genre that we would like to pursue as a class we all watched different genres of film openings, which would help us in deciding what genre our group were going to choose. We decided that some of the things that we should be looking for in these film openings are; how they fit to the stereotype of their genre, the camera shots, editing, mise-en-scene, the music/sounds that are used, how the mood/tone is established, how the characters are established and their use of the title and credits.
Here are some of the films & genres that we looked at:

HORROR - SAW
The music was typical horror film music (like low notes) that added to the mood, which made it more intense.
We saw that this film went straight to the action, and quickly established location, which was a mysterious room, characters, 2 men, which could have been seen to break a stereotype that it's usually women who are weaker and more likely to fall victims in horror movies.
At the beginning of this opening, the title appeared on a black background, which was quite good in establishing the mood as it cut quickly into the film.
The mood/tone is easily established by the dark setting at the beginning, when the lighting is introduced it's artificial lighting. A dead body was seen right at the beginning of the film also, which is typical of a horror. Typical things like blood were also seen. The question that this film opening was imposing was how the people got in this location, and why they were there.

COMEDY - EVAN ALMIGHTY
The music in this film opening was very upbeat, and very happy music which helped set the mood. The credits were appearing on the screen during the beginning of the film and as the music was playing and the location was being shown. This way of showing the credits was very effective for this genre, however we decided that this would not fit very well with other genres such as horror. There was very bright colors in this film opening which also helps set the mood. A family were introduced which were like a typical happy family, which are usually used in upbeat happy films such as comedies and are stereotypical. Also the camera shots were quite smooth and the editing wasn't too noticeable as this was not meant to be the focus, it was focusing more on the location and characters. Usually in comedies it starts off with a state of equilibrium, which is what this film opening was showing. Overall this film opening was very upbeat and all aspects, such as music and characters showed this.

THRILLER/ACTION - THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
In this film, it started with very quick editing together of a dream like sequence. These shots were very disorientated, and set up a mood of panic and chaos. The main character of this was introduced, and it was a very muscly man, which is a stereotypical hero of action/thriller films. The location of the place appeared like it was being typed up on the screen, which shows this it must be very important for the story that we must know the location. All of these elements came together to give this scene a very mysterious feel and that some sort of action would take place soon in the film. It was good at creating the mood.

3. PRELIMINARY - Finished Preliminary Exercise

PRELIMINARY

For our preliminary exercise, we filmed a continuity task which involved a character opening a door, coming into the room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, then some dialogue is exchanged. We incorporated Match on action, the 180 degree rule and shot/reverse shot in our preliminary which was instructed on the brief. First of all taking into consideration the clips of versions of this scene that we had watched previously we storyboarded our scene out and planned the idea which involved the things we had to include in the brief.






Following the storyboard that we drew up we decided to start filming our preliminary exercise and we filmed on 3/2/09 and 4/2/09. We used a tripod for our filming, and the first shot we had was a tracking shot of just someone’s legs and feet walking across a corridor towards a door, we then had to shoot the opening of the door and did this in two sections; First we shot the character, Lottie, opening and coming through the door from the outside, then we filmed her coming through the door from inside the room and carefully edited these together which demonstrated Match On Action as the aim of this was to make the opening of the door look like one continuous flowing action even though it was shot in more than one section. After this we filmed Lottie walking across the room and sitting down opposite another character. We kept to the 180 degree rule and only filmed on one side so the room and background would appear the same to the audience to shot continuity. We used shot/reverse shot as the conversation took place, and also incorporated Low angle, and high angle shots to make one character seem more vulnerable than the other.

After filming our shots on the 5/02/09, we used software on a computer to edit these together in a continuous style. We made sure to edit each shot very tightly together to make sure the scene looked continuous and kept to the brief on continuity editing. We filmed all our shots and kept it to a minimum of 2 days in order to achieve continuity as things like the room we filmed in and made sure that appearance of the characters stayed the same (making sure they wore the same clothes etc) throughout our scene.

From this preliminary exercise we learned about how to achieve continuity editing, which was the overall aim of this task. We also learned about which shots worked best in a sequence. We tried several of the shots with the camera in different positions to try out which shots looked best, and decided that we wouldn’t change the shots very much throughout and try and keep them the same as this would become noticeable to the audience and the editing would not appear continuous.
This was preparation for the main task which we feel has helped us gain an idea of he best way for us to film as a group.


Finished Preliminary: