New Idea

To help develop our idea, we were asked to present our idea to two experienced media teachers. After much debating, criticism and new ideas our film had been changed quite dramatically-

FIVE-
A blind twelve year old girl name Lucinda has been held by the Government to help save the global phenomenon. Her in normality has been heavily influenced by the devil and her once disadvantage give by the devil has now become a unique gift that will save lives. She naturally starts to draw the pentagram that answers all questions. A governor sits over her observing and waiting. She finishes her drawing and the members of authority now are completely aware of what they must do…The rest of the film goes as follows-Immediately, a security is called and prepared for what may save or destroy the world. The five points of the pentagram show the five cities that will be blown up by the devil. The Government are forced to contact each city that is under threat. Inhabitants must evacuate their city and find a secure place to stay. Each police force are asked to stay in the city to prevent this colossus threat. Under twenty four hours from then, every police officer in all five cities are and the devil in still unknown.

Props and Costume List

Paranormal Productions
Props List	Provider
Table	School	School Source
Chair (Simon’s room)	School	School Source
Mirror/Perspex	School	School Source
Paper/Card	School	Art Department
Pencil	School	Art Department
Costumes
-- Black Suits	School	Drama Department
-- Top and Skirt	Lydia	Lydia
Make-up	Crew

We have chosen simplistic and naturalistic props firstly to save us money and because we thought it would be more effective and so that the audience would concentrate on the story and the action of the scene. All costumes are black or white. We are going to dress our interrogator in a black suit with a white shirt so that he looks like an official and the colours show good and evil. This could give the audience mixed messages about whether he is a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy'. We are going to dress the young girl in all black to represent her dark and mysterious character.

Storyboard

Cast List

We chose teenagers so that our product would appeal to a young teenage audience. We also used an attractive middle aged man so that we would also be able to attract an older audience. We used a teenage girl as she represent innocence, and we wanted an attractive girl so it would appeal to male audiences.

StroyBoarding

This week we began the process of creating our storyboard to assist us with visualising the sequence and creating a logical order for shooting. Initially we finalised our idea and began to create specific shots to construct the sequence. The storyboard is a vital document as it provides a guide the production crew and allows film makers to impose order on the specific technical aspects of the scene. Each storyboard page is detailed with the following technicalities Location, Shot/Movement, Sound, Lighting, Edit, Transition and Timing. This is our list of shots:

• Point of view – First tarot card is revealed with first credits.
• Extreme Close-up – Ryan’s hand drawing chalk line on the floor.
• Extreme Close-up – Dead woman’s face, with her eyes covered in a blindfold.
• Extreme Close-up – Ryan’s hand placing a candle, it then lights itself.
• Point of view – Second tarot card is revealed with next credits.
• Wide Shot – Amber peering round top of the stairs and starts to walk the first few stairs.
• Point of view – through handheld, Amber walking down the stairs and opens the door to the basement.
• Point of view – Third tarot card is revealed with next credits.
• Wide Shot - Basement, dark room with candle, bodies and a vague shape on the floor.
• Wide Shot – Candle in foreground and Amber entering in background, she hears heavy footsteps, and runs into the corner.
• Point of view – Fourth tarot card is revealed with next credits.
• Wide Shot – Silhouette of Ryan in doorway.
• Wide Shot – Candle in foreground and Ryan entering in background, he starts moving towards one of the bodies.
• Mid-shot (lower half of torso) – Face in foreground and heavy boots walking towards the head. They stop, and then Ryan bends down to face.
• Wide Shot – Ryan reaches towards the face of the body and in the background Amber crouching in corner she shuffles to make a noise, Ryan spins.
• Point of View – From Amber of Ryan spinning to look at her.
• Close-Up – Amber’s reaction to his spin.
• Point of view – Fifth tarot card is revealed with next credits.
• Extreme Close Up – Candle goes out.
• Extreme Close Up -> Wide Shot (Birds Eye View) – Reveal of pentagram.

First Group Production Meeting

In this session our group all came together and we started to talk about refining the story of FIVE. We decided to clear up the background on the murder of his wife so that it didn’t sound quite so childish and confusing. We also gave our characters names so that it was a lot easier for us to identify who we were talking about. We kept with the idea about the man ‘Ryan’ involved with ‘black magic’, but we added the idea that he was doing a deal with the devil. We established where it was set, in America. Also that within this opening sequence there would be no dialog, just sounds.

My Thriller Idea

A man is taking revenge on the fact that his wife has been murdered. He is quite a spiritual man, not Christian but weird rituals. He has a ritual that he wants to perform, to regain his wife and the only way it can work is if he uses victims that resemble his wife. It takes him a year to collect his four victims. Meanwhile the daughter is witnessing all these women being taken away and then never seeing them again. On the fourth victim she plucks up the courage to go down to the basement where she has been told not to go, she then hears screams and other terrifying sounds. When the time comes for the fifth and final victim the ritual says it must be the family blood of the man. Unfortunately the man has turned completely delusional and the only person he then sees that has his family blood and reminds him of his wife is his only daughter. The ritual doesn’t end up working because the daughter isn’t actually his! His wife had an affair and the daughter was from that relationship, unbeknown to the man.The opening sequenceI’d like to have three close ups ofThe man’s hand, drawing the chalk circle.The woman’s face, with a tatty blindfold on.Bird’s eye view of the circle with the star inside.She becomes curious, peers around the top of the stairs, she starts quietly walking down the stairs to the basement door. When she gets there she gently pushes the door and it swings open, she can’t see anything inside because it is so dark. She steps in, and sees pools of blood at each point of the star, except the top point. In the far corner there is a body. White tunic dress and a tatty bit of material around her eyes. There are heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, she runs and crouches in the corner. The steps stop by the door; there is a silhouette of the man in the doorway. The heartbeat of the girl can be heard and with each beat there is a flash of the circle with a girl lying at one of the points, and at the next heartbeat there is another girl at a different point. Without another sound the man is leaning over the girl. He lifts his arm holding a knife, and then there is a long scream.

I think my target audience would be 16-25 year olds and probably most likely to be male. Indepentent british film company such as Channel Four, this would lower the buget a lot for the film.

What is a Thriller?

Today we looked at the meaning of Thriller. It is quite difficult to define because so many of the emotions and reactions that come from thrillers are part of the whole experience of film. Also, within the genre of Thriller there are meta-genres such as psychological, espionage and supernatural thrillers. The plot of a Thriller has to be intricate to create effects such as fear, apprehension and suspense. It usually runs on the audiences “basic worries”, which could be hidden, deep thoughts for example voyeurism, sexual or violence. These ‘worries’ are shown through questions or enigma codes in the audiences mind. A thriller is also sadomasochistic in a way that when you think about it, it is quite gruesome. Also the director of the film wants you to believe what’s happening, to get us emotionally involved and to give us gut-level feelings. The word ‘Thrill’ originally means ‘to pierce’.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Our preliminary was filmed in the old edit suite; this room had an underground look about it, it also looked like it had been deserted for a long time. When it came to the filming I tried to do and contribute as much as I could, but one member of our group seemed determined to do most of the work.
In the room the lighting was quite dark generally and then we had two bright lights shining towards the actors. These lights made the room have more of a mysterious look which seemed to go with the script. This lighting was effective because it created a lot of good shadows, which gives a better idea of what is going on.

When watching the film back the camera wasn’t actually set up correctly, because everything seemed to be absolutely fine until, we looked at a wide shot and it was unfocused. When we first set up the camera and tripod it was not actually even because we didn’t know how to bubble. Once we were showed how to bubble, every time we went to shoot a different shot we made sure that it was bubbled correctly. Another thing we had to check to make sure that the shot was frame correctly and to do this we made markers on the floor. When we set up the lights we had to make sure that they didn’t end up in the shot, also it was quite dangerous using shadows because we had to make sure that there were only two shadows and not of all the people shooting.
We started by filming everything in a ‘Wide Shot’ so that we captured everything and then moved onto an ‘Over the Shoulder Shot’, to show all shots of the conversation. We also decided to do ‘Close Ups’ as reaction shots. At the end of the session just to give that little more detail we shot a few ‘Cut-away’ shots. During the whole shooting session we were very conscious about crossing the ‘180 degree rule’. Therefore we didn’t so that it wouldn’t confuse our audience. Finally, every time we started filming we made sure we said “Standing By”, “Rolling” and “Action!”

Me and my friends

This is a Mid-Close Up (MCU) of four images contained in the one frame. It is shot in colour negative to get all the different effects in each image. This photo was taken with my friends when we were "revising". I like this photo because it reminds me of my two best-friends.

Little Shop of Horrors

This photo is a Wide Shot (WS) and was taken at eye-level. In this picture everyone is very central and was taken after our final performance of "Little Shop of Horrors". I like this photo because it shows that I love Musical Theatre. I also like it because it reminds me of the amount of fun it was every night.

Horror Poster

In our first lesson we had to come up with four ideas for a horror poster. My first few ideas weren’t exactly easy to do because I would need some professional photographs. When we were split into groups I pitched all of my ideas to the other three people, who seemed to agree with me that my first ideas were not excellent ideas because it would be very time consuming if I chose any of those three. I then pitched my last one which I had thought about a little longer. I decided then that I would use my younger sisters’ face as the victim, because she has a young looking face which instantly make her more vulnerable than say a grown man. I then thought it would work if the attacker was a grown man, because a stereotypical attacker is usually a man. My idea began as a sketch I drew of a young girl in an ECU of her eyes and nose. I then drew the silhouette of a man in the pupil of her eye, as a reflection of what she was seeing.
So, to create this I had two take two simple pictures, one was of an ECU of my little sister and the other was a MS of my dad in an attacking pose. I uploaded the two pictures into Photoshop, so that I could then start editing my sisters’ face. I used the “Liquefy” tool so that her pupils were a lot bigger, so that she looked surprised and I could also then fit in the silhouette of my dad. To the image of my sister I used the “Burn” tool so that you couldn’t see the hair line and it made her look like she was in a dark room. I gave the image the feeling of being in a dark because I thought it would look a little more terrifying than a ‘bright, colourful and cheery’ room, I wanted it to have a mysterious, deep and dark feel to it.
Whereas editing my dads’ photo was a little harder because I had to use the “Polygon Lasso”, this was quite difficult because when ever the silhouette didn’t look threatening enough I would have to start again. It took a while but ‘practice make perfect’. I minimised the size if my dad so that he would fit into the pupil of the victim. Once there was “reflection” of my dad in her eyes, I used the “Sponge” tool, and desaturated him so that he looked black and white and the reflection wouldn’t be so light and colourful. This also made it look like the room around her was dark too. To make it look like the attacker was really a “reflection” I put a white glint onto so that it looked like the light was reflecting off too.
Finally I came up with a title, slogan and made up a director and a company that ‘made’ the film. I used red and black for most of the writing because they relate to death blood and terror, which is the impression I want to give.

This picture is a Wide Shot (WS) because it shows all of my body. This picture is a Low Angle shot, with light coming from the top right-hand corner.

I put myself in the mist of nature because i love being outside with all the different colours!

Introduction

Hey, I'm Lottie. I am an AS Media student from Hurtwood House. A little bit about me, I love watching older films, for example "Seven Brides for Seven Borthers" because I love musicals and musical theatre. I also like more recent films like "The Ugly Truth" and most in between. My favourite music is mostly older, 80's type music becasue my parents like that sort of thing too.
I chose media studies because it is the sort of suject that can open many dorrs into different directions, also because it is a very practical subject and I find I can cope slightly better when an image is in front of me rather than a paragraph of writing.
In this first few weeks we have had a chunky introduction to media and Photoshop which was good fun!