Group Stroyboard - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of a group storyboard is the concept of our three combined ideas pieced into one final narrative. Another purpose is that when filming our final piece, we can use the storyboard to portray what we want to see in each frame. There will be a narrative, sounds, shots, locations, lighting, editing, characters and iconography. The story board also makes it a lot easier for us as we don't have to think on the spot as it is all planned out.

We took everyones idea and adapted them into one storyboard, by doing this we gained a range of ideas and techniques we didn't think about using before. We all had different mes - en - scene ideas as well as location and characters.

However when asking to look at my groups storyboards to look for inspiration, I found out that one of the members had not bothered to make one. This made us limited to ideas to incorporate into one storyboard. Although we did manage to produce a fair amount of detail to add into one.

My main idea was to put a twist on the fact that the girl is always the most vulnerable and tends to be killed off first, therefore we made it so the man did instead. I found it would give a twist in the scene and make the audience want to know what the girl is going to do next.

Another key idea we wanted to portray was the low key lighting and background noise. Starting on low key lighting, I feel this is used to keep the audience guessing to what is going on in the scene. The less they see the better as it helps keep up that element of surprise. This is  why many thrillers are set at night as visibility is reduced. Secondly, we found background noise key. Natural noises such as leaves or birds can easily send people into a false sense of security as the audience can relate to those noises and almost feel at home with them. 

To conclude, I feel we all icorparated our ideas well into one storyboard and we are now all clear on what our narrative is and how we will conduct each frame. 

Opening secretion - Miss Georgiou

The scene starts with me and Noah walking through the woods chatting about school work. Noah indicates that he needs to talk to me about something important, therefore we go for a walk in the woods and come across an abandoned building to sit in. As we are walking, we decided to use a number of high angles and straight cuts. There is a dark gradient placed over the scene as we walk through the woods. Throughout the first shots a light piano music is played to build suspense. As we continue to walk through the woods, the camera switches to a handheld shot used in the sense of a point of view angle and shows the camera moving down from a tree to the floor and the stalked hides in the leaves. At this point Noah turn around to see if anything is there, as he is cautious that he could be being followed. The audience start really feeling that they are in the stalkers shoes at this point.

With the music still playing,  a mid shot of Noah and I shows us walking into the building. The music lowers and the room is covered in candles. Noah states "so we can finally have that chat now" and suddenly there is a bang on the window. Noah go outside to check while the camera follows him. We tried to use a good use of low key light is used here and blurs and fades are used to try and keep continuity as Noah leaves. 

Next Noah walks into an open forest and asks "is anyone there?" The camera angle then cleverly changes to a point of view shot of the stalker who we see hiding as Noah walks. The stalker follows me walking behind me using a point of view shot and not changing the angles to keep it current and real. We can see a blade of screen as the stalker walks and we decided to do this for quite a while to build up tension among the audience. He then runs up to Noah and just as he strikes a flash comes across the screen and the camera cuts back to me.

I then continue to follow the same path that Noah did and we keep the light, noise, angles and shots the same as when Noah walked out to show the similarity of movement to keep the audience engaged. I am now in the forest and a canted angle is used while she shouts "Noah" continuously, showing my worry and concern. I suddenly stop and a panning shot is used as the camera moves around her so the audience can see what she sees. Hopefully at this point the audience are shocked to see Noah dead over a tree with blood dripping off me. 

There is then a jump cut to the front of me and the music suddenly builds and becomes a lot more sharper.  The stalker is seen rushing up behind her and just as he strikes once again the music and film cuts suddenly. Hopefully this cliff hanger will leave the audience in a great deal of suspense.

Rough cut - Miss Miller

Within film making, a rough cut shows the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product. It still needs to undergo many changes before being released. It is always important to consider looking through audience feedback as, it gives you a chance to see if the work is credible. Audience feedback is key as it allows the editor/director/producer to see what part of the film, needs further work and possible adaptation. 

Our main way of receiving feedback, was after we presented our rough cut to the class. My peers produced very helpful and insightful comments, which is going to allow us to change and improve our thriller opening scene. We were given feedback after doing a presentation to the whole class which allowed us to receive a massive range of feedback. The group provided both negative and positive feedback.

Heather explained to us how the camera is too shaky in one part of our thriller, therefore we had to come up with a  solution to improve it. Therefore we asked our Media teacher for advise,  she suggested that we cut the part up and incorporate different effects over the top. 

On the other hand George liked the fact that we had a dull wash over the whole of the opening scene, although it was filmed in the day it made the thriller look as if its night. He said it was very effective and made the thriller more intense.

Although we did have another negative point said about our opening scene. The titles over the opening scene are out of time which takes your eye off the scene and distracts the audience. Its key that we make sure we change and improve on this as soon as possible. 

Overall the feedback was quite good, the viewer seem to enjoy it and felt a bit scared but most of all wanted to see what the film was about. This is what a opening scene is supposed to do, I am very happy that we are near to achieving this.

Production roles - Miss Miller

Within my opening scene there are several production roles. These are important in the film making, as it makes sure people are focused on their task. It helps allocate people individual parts which helps make the task in hand much swifter and less time consuming. Therefore we have included a production role to insure that we are organised.

The main roles in a production are:

• Producer - Film producers prepare and then supervise the making of a film before presenting the product to a financing entity or a film distributor.

• Directors - a person who is in charge of an activity, department, or organisation.

• Actors - a person whose profession is acting on the stage, in films, or on television.

• Director of photography - A cinematographer is the chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, and responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image. The study and practice of this field is referred to as cinematography.

• Sound technician - They prepare, operate and maintain technical equipment to amplify, enhance, mix or reproduce sound. They work on audio recordings, films, radio and television programmes and live performances.

• Screen play writers - A screenwriter or scriptwriter or scenarist is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media such as films, television programs, comics or video games are based.

• MES co-ordinators - Someone who is in control of all props, costumes and make up. They can work on films, tv and stage.

• Editors -Film editors work in the post-production process of filmmaking. They take all the shots from filming, and edit them until the finished product matches the director's vision of the film.

When discussing about the roles of production within my group, we made sure that Jodie and Noah were originally written down as the main two actors. Therefore on our opening scene after the productions name, they will be the first two names that the audience see. This is as we believe that they are supposed to be our main characters and therefore the most important.  However there is still one more character who will be added in towards the end as it is a role is not as important as the other two actors.
Next we discussed who would be the producer, this would have to be someone who could be at every step of the film to over see the making of the film and also make sure that everyone keeps on schedule. Therefore, we chose Noah to be the producer, as he is sensible and can take control of a situation. 
We then chose who would be the director, we thought that whoever took control of this part should also be in control of the camera, therefore we chose Alex, as he wanted to be the director of photography as well. With Alex being the director of photography, he has to make sure he understands the different types of camera angles, that is why we have chosen him, as he seems the most confident out of everyone in the group. 
When choosing who should be the sound technician, we decided to include Heather Everingham as she has experience in music and making sound tracks. She takes advise well, therefore we thought that she would be a great contribution to the group.
Next, we had to decide who would be the screen play writer, as I had already written over half of the script, we thought it would be a sensible to put me down as the screen writer. 
Finally we had a long discussion who would be the editor or editors,  we chose that we would all play a part in editing our opening scene. This way we could all put our contribution into the scene. It will also hopefully stop any arguments, as we can all decide what should be inputted into our film. 

Narrative theory - Miss Georgiou

To find out what the difference between a narrative and a story is I decided to look at several different theories, these included the thoughts of Aristotle. However to determine what a narrative and a story are, I found definitions.

A narrative is some kind of retelling, often in words (though it is possible to mime a story), of something that happened (a story). The narrative is not the story itself but rather the telling of the story -- which is why it is so often used in phrases such as "written narrative," "oral narrative," etc. While a story just is a sequence of events, a narrative recounts those events, perhaps leaving some occurrences out because they are from some perspective insignificant, and perhaps emphasising others. In a series of events, a car crash takes a split second. A narrative account, however, might be almost entirely about the crash itself and the few seconds leading up to it. Narratives thus shape history (the series of events, the story of what happened).

 While a story is defined as normal a tale that is made up and is not real. These come in many different forms such as folk tales, child books and adult books.

Theory 1

Vladimir Propp

The ideas from Propp is that he believed that a good story has to have these characters to be successful.
The hero, this is someone that has been sent on a mission and has something to gain.
The villain, this is doing something against the hero or has taken something from the hero, this person is normally disliked by the audience.
The donor this is someone that has given the hero something that makes them special or extra.
The dispatcher,
The False hero, this is someone who pretends that they are good and helping others but they are just taking the credit of the hero.
The Helper, this is someone who help the hero though out the mission
The Princesses this is someone that the hero is fighting for because they cant defend them self
Her father this is someone who has send the hero on the mission and gives them a reward



Theory 2

Tzveten Todorov's

The ideas from Todorov's is that he thinking that characters are to complicated so a clear story with structure is the best way for a story to be interesting and successful. He narrative is seen as a circular one. The narrative is driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium but it is shown at the start and is not the same as the one at the end.

Theory 3

Aristotle

Aristotle believed the characters and it's narrative were not important but it's themes which were successful.
Headings that are used by some producers and screenwriters include:
Inciting Incident
Dramatic Question
Character Goal
Antagonist/Protagonist
Stakes
Resolution
Sympathy/Empathy

Filming schedule - Miss Georgiou

 

The main reason for a filming schedule is for keeping the whole group in time. It keeps everyone on time, also it helps the directors plan out where and what should be happening. There is also another plus to having a filming schedule, as if you are ahead on filming, you'll be able to shorten your schedule — thus, saving time and money.

When it came to filming our thriller opening scene, we found it hard to get everyone in the same location at the same time. Therefore we had to change some of the dates on the schedule. Although, it did help the group, when we had to film the next part. Instead of wasting time planning what we were filming next, we can look at the schedule.

Planning Editing - Miss Georgiou

In this post I will be looking the different editing styles my group has used to create our thriller film.

Editing styles are important as they allow you to create how take control of the audience's feelings. To create a sense of panic within the audience then the editing should be fast and jumpy. However if you wanted to show a scene which was calm you would possibly use continuity editing.

The first editing style, which is used in our group opening scene is the fast fade which leads into a blackout which we use at the end of the scene. We decided to use this technique as it creates a cliff hanger which keeps the audience guessing. This also adds to the overall suspense that the audience are feeling. If your thriller gets people talking after it has ended, its means people are thinking about it and you want that long lasting effect that a cliff hanger created by fade gives you. Films like saw tend to do this often.

The next technique that is used is a shallow focus, this is when the camera focuses from one single point in a frame to another.  For the audience, this allows them to only focus on one object or character without actually being able to see what is going on in the background. This can provoke fear within the audience as they could anticipate something is going to happen. This is used in many thriller films.

Another technique is shot reverse shot. This is when the camera switches from one person to another. This shows the audience that people could be talking to each other but are in different places. In our film, this will be the switching back and forth between me and Lucy. This technique is used to somewhat immerse the audience with the characters. Making them have feelings for the characters leading to a greater shock when something bad happens. A good film this was used in was house on haunted hill. All the characters were in different places however you became to be aware of where each one is thanks to shot reverse shot.

The final technique i would like to talk about is a jump cut. This is where the camera immediately cuts to another frame. This could be used to show panic or importance of the situation that is occurring. This can add a lot of suspense to the audience as constant jump cuts can create panic and tension.  This type of editing can leave people on the edge of their seats. A film this is used a lot in is insidious.
These four editing techniques and more have been incorporated together to make our thriller film. I feel with these now in places we can really lead the audience into thinking they are somewhat part of the whole scene to really give them a fright.