Tuesday 27 April 2010

Posters that have influenced our own planning




We were heavily influenced by this poster. We all liked the way the woods are in the background and the mist makes the poster look eerie. The way that the iconography is printed coming through the mist is creepy and extremely effective. The poster just introduces the film name and the date it will being coming out in cinemas. It is simple and effective. We all agreed that this set out with the location in the background, the outline of the victim and the stalker in the background.


Georgia Day

Thriller poster ideas

For our thriller we decided to create a poster to advertise our thriller we based our idea on our thriller posters. The cape fear poster has a picture of where the action takes place we decided to interpret this idea into our poster so we will have a picture of the woods in our poster. We also based our idea on a new moon poster we saw the poster and liked the effect they had used. They made the woods appear misty and more scary. We want to do this with our poster to make it appear scarier.

By Roberta Leary

Our Poster


By Georgia Day, Roberta Leary and Maria Rostkowska

Friday 23 April 2010

Filming our footage

Once we had all of our storyboards and everything sorted, we shot our footage. Considering we only needed 2minutes worth of filming we filmed at least 5 minutes worth. But we also had to take into consideration that we wanted a varied amount of shots from different angles so when putting the final piece together we had a choice of what clips to use.
We felt we had very good continuity editing there is one scene where Georgia Day comes out of Roberta’s house in (..) and then we film her walking out of another house pathway round the back of the school near our main setting. We also used our own sound affects. Like when Georgia is walking down a footpath and the camera is being handheld, as if it is seeing though the eyes of the killer, the camera moves and we purposely snap a twig so it looks as if the killer is creeping. It adds to the misé-en-scene.
We encountered some problems when filming though. We had the problem of the weather, one day we would film and it would be a dull day with lots of clouds, this was very good for the ominous setting, but the next day of recording brought us bright sunshine and this was very noticeable when we tried to get some footage. To work our way round the problem we decided to use the time to take still camera shots in the woods for the end of the clip, where the trees blocked out most of the sunshine which helped a lot.
We also had to make sure when we were filming the scenes using the sharp meat knife, that there was nobody around as to not cause any panic from anybody misunderstanding that we’re in fact only pretending.
We used a lot of props to add detail to the clip. We used twigs to make sound affects; we used a real sharp kitchen knife to make it more believable. We also used a school bag to add to the ‘student’ image we was trying to create for Georgia.
The costumes we felt were in brilliant sync and fitted well with the characters. We used black clothing for the killer; this had the connotation of the dark, horrific nature of the character. We used a blazer and leggings for Georgia’s character, the ‘victim’. This was just a typical, day to day outfit that a student would wear. This made Georgia’s character more obvious to the audience.
When we discussed what types of shots to use, we decided on using the zoom but only for distinct shots where we are adding emphasis to a certain object or person. We decided to pan the camera around for most of the shots instead of hand holding the camera all the way throughout, this is because when we do have shots where the camera is handheld it is more effective and the audience will notice it. Also if we handheld the camera all the movement may make the audience dizzy.

By Maria Rostkowska

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Typography/ credits

We had to think about the way in which our typography/ credits would move into the screen. Our thriller starts with a blank screen and the shot opens with a sound bridge of a girl screaming, we thought that we could fade in the credits slowly throughout the filming. The film ends with a scream and the shot fades to black. This would be a prime opportunity to show the title of our film. The typography will fade into the screen. We have chosen a creepy and disturbing font and it will suit our thriller perfectly.

By Roberta Leary

Title Design

These are our font ideas for our thriller we wanted something to stand out. We decided for our font to be in black on a white background so it contrasts directly and really stands out. We didn’t like the third font as we thought this suited a horror film better than a thriller, and the same for the first font this reminded us of a prison and our thriller has no link to a prison in any way so we decided against that font. In the end we decided to use the second font as the spaced out letters in the font make it seem creepy and disturbing.




















Georgia Day

Choosing our film title

We had a group discussion during lesson time about choosing the name for our thriller. We all decided this would be a huge decision to make as the name of the film is extremely important and draws the audience in. You can find out alot about a film from it's name. For example the film 'Love Actually' immediately tells you that the film is a romance. With films such as 'SAW' and 'The Grudge' you know that they are horrors and will be scary from their titles.

We discussed using the title 'Slit'. As jaw dropping as the title is, we decided it would be highly associated with a horror film and decided to go with a different approach.

Finally we came up with the name 'The Watching'. It suggests that their is a victim and a chase. This is a strong name and grips our audience. 'The Watching' is suited to our film perfectly as the girl is being followed and watched throughout. The title is creepy and disturbing.

By Roberta Leary

Our Questionnaire focus group

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about thier perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product.

Advantages

- There are a variety of responses directly from your target audience.
- The type of research is a lot more in depth making it qualitative rather than quantative.

Disadvantages

If in the group you use friends that are being interviewed then their answer may be biased.
- In the group one person may dominate giving really only one opinion.
- You may not hear what you want.
- There could be too many people talking over each other which could make things unclear.


For our focus we group we used random sampling this consisted of students of all ages and each sex answering our questions this ensured us that we had a wide range of unbiased answers.


Georgia Day

Props, make up and costume





















To ensure that the audience would not get confused, we had to think hard about the continuity editing. Every day that we filmed, we had to remember to bring the same costume and accessories such as the bag and the blazer. We had to remember even the little things, like which arm the girl (Georgia) had the bag wrapped around and made sure that this didn’t change as we moved around for the next shot.


Before filming the final scene in the woods we went to the art department and applied make up and paint on Georgia’s face. I (Roberta) applied the make up whilst Maria took some photos to put up onto our Blog. We had to think about the weapon of our choice which was a knife and the injuries that would come from it. We decided on painting a slit across her throat and face with blood dripping down. We thought about the conventions of a thriller and blood fitted into these aspects. Blood is highly associated with horrors or thrillers. Our choice of weapon was a knife, we thought the best way of killing the victim would be to slit her throat, or stab her.


By Roberta Leary

Brief





The storyline for our 2minute film clip is that the camera opens with a shot of a dead girl, it’s a crime scene, as the clip goes on we start to see flashbacks of how the girl ended up dead. This is known as starting the film off at the disequilibrium. The problem has already occurred now the characters need to unfold what happened. This is a typical feature in a thriller movie. As inspiration we included some techniques and ideas from other films, this is called intertextuality. Some of our inspiration came from the ‘SAW’ movies. There is a particular scene, where we can see a wall of images from where ‘Jigsaw’ has stalked his victims, and has pictures of them from everyday life. We have interpreted this and adapted it to our context because the two situations are entirely different. There are also a lot of high angle shots looking down at the victims, this gives the perfect connotation that the girl in our clip is as vulnerable and is in as much danger. We also used a technique most commonly seen in the hit US TV series, ‘Crime Scene Investigation’ (‘CSI’), it’s where the camera focus’s in on a specific detail and then the frame freezes as if it is a picture that has just been taken. It is a good technique and fits in well with the context of the scene being a crime scene.

In our clip we are trying to use as many conventions that would be associated with thrillers. For one we have a mysterious death, and a police investigation. We also tried to keep the lighting low key so there was a more intense and mysterious atmosphere. When choosing a setting for our clip we picked the woods at the rear end of our school grounds. It has lots of leaves and twigs, this will add to the sound affects when we shoot the clip of the girl walking through the woods. It also has low key lighting because all the trees block out the sunlight so it creates an eerie atmosphere, this fits in with the ‘thriller’ genre.

We haven’t selected specific actors, we have starred in the clip ourselves, this is because we wouldn’t have to wait around for the other people to film, and also it’s possible to convey the characters in the way we want them to be seen by the audience. The ages of our actors range from 16-17. We’ve kept the actors young intentionally; this is because it fits in with the story line and context. Also the young man who murders our innocent victim is portrayed as a typical ‘hoodie teenager’, these are portrayed in the media to be a threat to society and they are considered dangerous and likely to commit crimes.
Our target audience is mainly young adults/adults. This is a thriller therefore not recommended for young children. We want our movie to appeal to teenagers aged 15 and over. We want it to appeal to the right audience so it will sell and will be recommended by friends to other friends.

To be continued…

Maria Rostkowska