From reasearching online I have found out some key information about lenses I will outline this information in bullet point form below: - The MM on a lens refers to the distance from the sensor, to the point of convergence (see below image with diagram of lenses). - A larger MM lens will act like a zoom, but only let in a smaller amount of light. - A lens with a smaller MM will elongate, and stretch the image, whilst a larger MM lens will compress the image. - A human eye is the equivalent of a 50MM lens, so I can use this as common ground. - A lens between 14 and 24 MM is considered to be ultra wide. A lens which is between 24 and 35MM is considered to be wide. Any lens between 35 and 70MM is considered to be standard. 70-105MM is to be mild telephoto, and anything over 105MM is telephoto.
For filming we decided to use a students bedroom, becuase we would not have to make up a set. We would only have to make minor alterations, because we will only use a shallow depth of field, meaning the background will not be in focus. We will possibly consider removing the beds to give us more space. We may run into problems using another students bedroom for filming due to permission, as a backup we could use the studio, with a set to look like a room, this would not need much time into design because of our use of a narrow depth of field, not revealing much of the background, and making it appear as just a blur.
We found a white old looking floaty dress which would fit perfectly with the look, and feel of the thriller.
Man Costume-
We wanted to make the man covered, so we found a overcoat, a hat, and some cheap synthetic leather gloves. The additional items, such as tie, black trousers, and a white shirt will not have to be purchased, because it is highly likely that the actor will have the items in there possession already.
Backup-
If we are unable to purchase the items, we will seek the items out in the theater department, and also seek them from our fellow students.
Why-
We wanted the girl to be dressed in white, because it represents innocence, and purity. It also looks like something that symbolizes death, because of the look, and floatyness of the dress.
We wanted the man to wear black, because it connotes evil, and bad intentions. We did not want to make him wear any fancy clothing, because we wanted the man to appear normal, and to allow the audience to be able to relate, and sympathize with him.
New scene outline: •Sink, water coming out •Brushing teeth •Spitting it out •Tap of water dripping •Pan of dressing table •Clock ticking •Eyelashes being curled •Eyeliner being put on •Clock ticking, fast •Mascara being put on •Pills and teddy bear •Record player •Brush hitting powder •Powder putting on girl •Lip stick being taken out •Lip stick being put on lips •Another angle of lip stick being put on •Brushing of hair •Different angle of hair brush •Curling hair •Mans hand record being turned off •Teddy bears eyes •Girls eye •Picking up leather gloves •Leather gloves being put on by man •Girls feet being shown with rope •Man walks out •Close up on face •Final tick on clock •Black out.
I had a quick search for "how to act dead" and I found mostly sarcastic videos and websites, but looking further I found some useful information regarding how to make someone appear dead, both with editing, and acting. In summery I found that I should not use too long a shot, and also take slow shallow breaths, and do not try to hold it.
Brief- Male aged over 40. Teenager female aged ~17 Who? Mike Timson- We would use him because of his features, and willingness to act. Backup? Mike Niland- He would be able to act as a backup, because he is set aside time to help us anyway. Person In the Industry? Stellan Skarsgard- He has extraordinary acting skills, and has mature/aged looking hands. Who? Mia McCallum- Has acting experience, has smooth skin, so the macro, closeups would not show so many imperfections. Backup? Edwarda Martinas- She has young looking skin, and is talented in acting. She is studying GCSE, so she will be able to take time from lessons to act. Person In the Industry? Masie Williams- She would be perfect because she has very perfect skin, and her skin color is pale, meaning it would be easier to pull off that she was dead. She also has young looking skin, making the character look more vulnerable. I find the contrast between a man and the younger girl creates a effective cruxterposition.
Feedback From Pitch: We were told that we should get rid of the teddy bear, becuase it makes the video loose tenstion. We were told that we should show more of his affection, to show the deep connections. We were told that we could consider having the needle of the record player jump at the end of the run, to show the speration. We were told that we should make the girl dead so that it looses the personl attachemnt with the man and girl. We were told that we should continue with the eyeliner, becuase it adds tension and makes it creepy. We were advised to try not to adhere to the little girl doing makeup stereotype.
The above storyboard shows the scene outline illustrated in a visual, and graphical way. It will help us in the filming, because it tells us our shot duration, location, framing, action, and the sound.
To create our storyboard we first used paper to rough sketch out the storyboard, then we sketched out the storyboard on my iPad Pro, because it has superior drawing algorithms, which allowed for us to get a beautiful finish. I then pulled it up onto PhotoShop, isolated each image, set up some rulers, to drag the images onto, and added the text underneath.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer does not specialize in any particular area, but instead currently focuses on current trends. MGM used to be very successful, and was slow to move with current changes, believing in keeping traditions alive, and using older techniques and style in film. The traditional approach to film did not go so well for them in the early 2,000s, MGM had to file for bankruptcy early in 2013, but with heavy investment aw a revival in late 2013. Since the they have been very successful with the "jump street" series of films, along with several other films. Now that MGM have increased in wealth they are obviously looking for new film ideas, I beive ours is perfect, because it follows current trends, and sounds intresting on a poster, or trailer. From the limited information available online I have decided that MGM tailors for a mass market male audience, this fits in perfectly with our thriller.
Above is a screen shot of the MGM website, and I could could picture our thriller within this list. MGM specializes in a range of films, and has made high budget films like 21 Jump Street, and also many low budget films. I believe that our thriller wold be a medium budget film with the main character being played by a famous actor to attract more customers. Our film would make money by initially marketing the film, and creating hype, and then selling merchandise to use for self promotion. The film would be released in the following order; chain cinema (they also help promote the film with posters, and they have a large customer base), after that we would team up with iTunes to have a early pre-release, and then release it on DVD, and a mount later release on Blue Ray to add a additional selling point, and to reduce the decline of the film. When the film is not selling many copies we wold release it on instant video sites such as Nextflix so that revenue per view would be generated.
I believe that Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) would want to make our thriller, because it closely ties into there past thrillers, and also because our thriller has a fully rounded storyline, hand will engage a audience, whilst also attracting new and existing media consumers.
MGM have made similar films to ours, such as Carrie, Believers, and Amnityville.
The above clip shows the trailer for Carrie, which I deem to have a similar style to our thriller, because of the traits, and pure creepiness of both.
A story board is a basic way of sketching out your whole film. Now storyboarding saves both time and money, because all departments, and teams can be on the same page, and can all the precise shot that needs to be taken. in a worst case scenario people can argue on set waiting time, and essentially waisting money, as actors, and money to rent a area will cost money, and can increase the overall cost of the film dramatically, if storyboarding is not used. Overall storyboarding is a visual aid to simplify your idea, which can aid in making a plan, and promoting creativity, it is also very good for planning the technical aspects, and figuring out how a production will be approached. It is much cheaper to spend time, and resources in pre production, it also visually allows everyone to be on the same page regarding the visual side. For out thriller opening scene it will be really important to use storyboarding because we only have one day to shoot in the studio, meaning that we need to make shore that we are all on the same page, and to reduce all decision making to a minimum, so that we do not waste our precious time. We can also visualise and change our idea, and still all be on the same page. We can also give the storyboard to our actors, and they will know exactly what is needed of them.
Pitch; A girl being dressed up as a doll. The audience does not know throughout that the man is dressing her up. She is drugged out. At the end the audience realises that she was not doing it herself, but the man was doing it all along. Step By Step; •Sink, water coming out •Brushing teeth •Spitting it out •Tap of water dripping •Pan of dressing table •Clock ticking •Eyelashes being curled •Eyeliner being put on •Clock ticking, fast •Mascara being put on •Pills and teddy bear •Record player •Brush hitting powder •Powder putting on girl •Lip stick being taken out •Lip stick being put on lips •Another angle of lip stick being put on •Brushing of hair •Different angle of hair brush •Curling hair •Mans hand record being turned off •Teddy bears eyes •Girls eye •Picking up leather gloves •Leather gloves being put on by man •Girls feet being shown with rope •Man walks out •Close up on face •Final tick on clock •Black out. Casting; Man aged 40+ Girl aged 16-18 Location; A bedroom ( we would use a bedroom in one of the boarding houses in case we don't find a room to our likings we will build a bedroom in the studio)
We got straight to action during the shoot, and got the subject to sit in the position, and we got her to remain there during the duration of the filming. To get the creepy apearance to the scene we tried experimenting with many extreme closeups, the problem which we encounted when shooting, was that when we got close into the subjects face we started to loose focus, for the actual shoot we will try and use a macro lens to allow us to get the camera right into the face of the subject, whilst still manitain clarity. We used a Sony 4K handycam camera, we used this camera, becuase it has a good definiton of colours, and has a very high pixel density, allowing it would be played on a high quality monitor, allowing the subject to appear life like. We wanted to idealy shoot inside of a bedroom, with a mirror in it, but because the lack of a bedroom within campus we will have to use the school common room as a substitute. This will work well because the room was adequately lit, allowing the camera to lower the iso, giving for a grain free footage.
Ideally we would want a girl aged 16 to 18, and a man aged 45 to 60. Unfortunately actors matching the descriptions will not be available, so we will use Naomi as the girl, because she is 17, and suits the description for our character. With the male character we will have to substitute with Amr, he is also 17, which does not match our characters description, but as a substitute we can make it work well.
Looking at the location beforehand we noticed that there was a lack of a few props that we needed, including a record player, but we agreed that we could just use a closeup of the buttons on the vcr.
In the shoot we will need the following items; hair brush, tooth brush, mascara, eyeliner, toothpaste, and lipstick. We have agreed that Naomi will bring in the items, as she owns all of them.
Often ideas that are thought of do not translate well into a film scenario, but our idea conveyed all of its messages successfully, whilst also still giving the really creepy feeling. In all honesty we felt slightly creepd out behind the camera, and looking over the footage, we noticed that the extreme closeups used creates tension, because of the lack of information given.
Setting Up The Camera
We felt that after the edit that the shot duration was slightly longer than we expected, and that we did not have enough of a variety of camera angles. To rectify the issues we thought that we could of used shown more intracly pieced together shots, so that we could edit it together using invisible editing techniques.
Getting The Subject ready For The Shot
Tension was something that we wanted to lay the foundations of our thriller upon, and I think that the sequence created tension, because of the long shot durations combined with the extreme close ups. From looking at a audiences reaction, we could tell that they wanted to know what was next, and why this girl is giving such a straight face whilst doing her makeup.
Using A Smart Focus Feature Which Keeps One Part Constantly In Focus
When shooting we struggled to get close up to the subject, due to the camera built in lens, we would loose focus if we went so close in, so we had to compromise and go a as close as possible without loosing focus. One person recommended just cropping the footage, but when it comes to footage I always believe that it is best to get the best possible quality as possible, especially with the shot were the lipstick is being painted on, because it gives this grain free view of the lips, with the beautiful, and unnerving shine.We came to the decision that we should use a macro lens so that we can get close to the subject without loosing focus, or clarity.
Preparing For The Extreme Closeup Of The Tooth Brush
After editing the clip we noticed that we had 15 seconds short off of the given time, to add to the time we should use more shots that allow the audience to see for definite that she is at the location against her will.
Sometimes The Best Angle Is Not The Most Comfortable
We all agreed that we shot of used a wider variety of angles, so that the sequence will be more fluid in viewing, and to allow for invisible editing. Overall we felt as if we made the sequence seem very creepy, and also creating a huge amount of tension from hiding a large amount of information until the end.
On Thursday we had our initial meeting, were we discussed what our opening sequence could contain, and the general feeling of the clip. We decided to also create a FaceBook group, so that we could discuss new ideas, share work, and distribute the minute meetings that we had made. On the second day of meeting we discussed the name of the thriller, we decided to go with the name 'Dammia', because it had a nice sound to it, and the word originates from arabic, and has dark meanings, that we felt would suit our style. We found it hard to all agree on a idea, but eventually we came up with the idea of a teenager with a complete emotionless look on her face getting ready, with her make up done really badly, but it just seems wrong, and at the end you see a man whispering into the girls ear.
We were Instructed to come up with 4 initial ideas for our upcoming thriller, so that we could show them in class, and develop them so that we could collect feedback, and alter the ideas to the received feedback.
Initial Ideas
I created my ideas mainly around the theme of kidnapping, I did not do this intentionally do this, but this is how my ideas developed, and progressed.
1st Idea
My first idea revolves around a group of vigilantes who take criminals children and threaten to kill them, unless the criminal commits suicide, and leaves a suicide note admitting there wrongdoings, and leave half of the money for there children, and half for charity.
The opening sequence will begin with men in suits, and anonymous style masks on, breaking into a large manor, and spreading out and looking around for someone, or something. The men group back together and devise a plan to check every room. After a while they find a boy hidden inside a cupboard. They then drag him out and put him in the back seat of a a van.
Mood Board For 1st Idea
2nd Idea
The whole piece would be About a terrorist group who kill innocent people if the government does not change laws. In the end all of the odd requests add up and legally allow a organisation to be able to do something very wrong legally.
The opening sequence would go as the following; A man driving in the dark, but his engine suddenly cuts out, and after several attempts the car still won't start. 2 suited gentlemen appear out of the dark, and as the man in the car asks for help they taser the man, and they then take him to a van. The man then wakes up with a hood on, but feels around, and feels a dead person, as he shouts the men come in and drag the body out.
Mood Board For 2nd Idea
3rd Idea
The whole film would be about a group of young adults who target minorities. And anytime anyone who is not British joins the council estate they will get murdered, and then the body will be left somewhere far away.
The opening sequence will begin with a family from a other country walking along the street having fun, and enjoying themselves, until out of the dark a group of hooded individuals circles them and throws them in the back of a van, and then transports them to a shipping container. After a day they hear police sirens, and the container is opened, with ambulance staff awaiting with food and blankets.
4th Idea
The whole film would be about a secret underground group who owns a illegal private detective/spy group. They only captured the woman because they wanted to see if she could take the stress of a kidnap without breaking.
The sequence would begin by introducing a woman cycling though a town, portrayed as being happy, and joyful. She cycles off into a side street were a van with a open side drives alongside, and pulls her off of the bike. She gets told shut up and her hands and feet are bound. The van is then parked up and she gets carried into a sci-fi looking room.
Presentation, and collection of feedback on 2 ideas.
We were instructed to prepare to present our 2 best ideas to our class, and collect the feedback so that we can alter the idea, and refine the idea.
Here is the video for my first presented thriller idea's feedback, I apologise for the bad audio, and shaky camera, I was trying to not shove the camera in there faces, as to allow there feedback, without feeling intimidated by the camera.
Below is something I created to see the good, and bad about my idea.
Below is my second idea's feedback.
And here is another thing that I used to record the information in the video.
Response, And Adapted Idea.
1st Idea
I have taken account of the feedback, and adapted my original idea. The adapted idea would follow closely to the original, with the men in suits and masks getting out of a van, and one man telling the other that it is the only way that they could right there wrongs. They would then walk towards the house, then sign messaging each other, then two men run around the back whist more pick the door, and quietly storm the house, each person splits off and can't find anything, until one man searches a cupboard, and finds a child under a pile of clothes. The child is then in a non forceful way taken to a mini van, where he is given a teddy bear.
2nd Idea
The newly adapted idea would go a s following, the men are getting ready, and one gets out his phone and presses a button, then a car engine appears to stop. All of the men get ready, and slowly walk towards the car, they see the man getting scared, they then see him looking at them, and drag them out of his car, and another stars the engine and drives off. The man is hooded, and put in the back of a van, he can feel a dead body, and screams, at that moment the body is dragged out.
In this blog post I will be going over; the differences of genre, sub-genre, and hybrid genre. I will also be outlining the main sub genres, what makes it one, and films within it.
A genre is a way of categorizing media based on the conventions and themes. However a sub genre is when you join two main genes together to make a genre inside a genre, one could call it a subdivision of a genre. Lastly a hybrid genre blends together themes and elements from two or more different genres, the media following the hybrid genre will always be fiction. All of the above are different, because a genre is a piece of media which adheres to only one genres ideology, whilst a hybrid genre is two or more genres combined.
Below is something I made up outlining a few sub genres, what defines it, and some the films which lie within the sub genre.
On Friday we went to the edit suite to edit the video from last weeks filming task. We were agin using Adobe Premier Pro, I had learned the basics from the lesson in our first editing lesson, so I transferred my skills to this task.
We were given a blank timeline, with the files already prepared for us. I used a basic cut on action approach, this made the edits seamless, and made for invisible cuts. After time, my timeline became cluttered, and I found it hard to manage all of the clips, if I was to repay the task I would, try to keep all of the edits lower, opposed to going for the stacking like approach (see below screenshot).
Timeline before cleanup.
As you can see above the timeline is very cluttered, even after tidying it up a bit, I found it hard to move around the timeline and became confused, and found it strenuous to do any edits. See the right image for the timeline before clean-up. I had assumed that the audio worked in a similar way to the video, and that it worked by the further it is away from the centre the higher the priority, and all other audio would be blocked, but I was wrong, it simply accumulates the audio and combines it into one huge echoey cacophony. To fix the audio issue, I had to go into every single clip, and cut it to the exact length that it is going to be shown. I had learned that it is easier to use use "i", and "o" on the keyboard to pre-cut the footage. As a group we decided to add a additional tense scene to the end, this scene was a nice addition to the edit, and allowed my show off my editing skills in both both dialogue, and action. A problem which we managed to fix was the fade to black, I am not a confident user of Adobe Premier Pro, so I had to fiddle around with the settings to find the fade to black setting. We added in the fade to black setting, because we wanted to show that a long time had passed since the last scene, and to add tension.
Normal editing done inside "Standard" the fade to black setting was hidden in "effects"
If I was to do the task again I would of made shore that when the actors were participating in dialogue, they had left enough time between lines, this would of made editing better, and of given me more flexibility in terms of timing. In terms of editing I would of made shore that all of the clips on the timeline would be more organised, which would of allowed me to make edits more efficiently. Co editing proved difficult, because each edit you do makes a huge difference, even if it is only a few frames. If I was to do the edit differently, I would try to collaborate with my coeditor, and make mutually agreed roles in the editing, and to do separate areas independently, to avoid conflict, and only at the end comment of each others work, and amend it as required.
