Props needed before filming begins. 23/11/10.

To make our film look realistic we're going to need to buy/make the following props before filming begins:



• Red t-shirts, made to look like Manchester United shirts - because these were what the girls were wearing on the day of their abduction, and played a large role in the evidence of Huntley's role in the event.



• Open bins, to contain the girl's burnt red tops in the scene where the police actor is searching through them and finds the tops.

 


•   A woman's police hat - for our actress to wear when interviewing Huntley and searching for evidence in our film, to make her role in the film clear. Also a script for the interview will need to be written up.



• Newspapers made with our printed headlines on – for the scene of the newspapers falling on the table.

• Script for interview with policewoman and Ian Huntley, also need script for newsreader to read out.

Storyboard of first two minutes of film. 22/11/10.




First shot: Long shot.

Straight on camera shot showing girls opening a door and leaving a house. Shows match on action, shows opening from the inside and walking out of door, to end up standing on footpath to house together. Both wearing red t-shirts.

 

Second shot: Long shot.

  High angle shot in style of a CCTV camera. Shows the two girls walking past houses in a built up area, wearing same clothes as last shot.



Third shot: Mid shot.

  Newsreader sat behind a desk, reading the headlines of two girls missing. Still, straight shot.



Fourth shot: Mid shot.

  Interview shot, policeman talking to Ian Huntley, discussing the missing girls – Ian saying the last time he saw the girls. Keeping to 180 degree rule, showing one actor talking then the next.

 


Fifth shot - tracking long shotPolice actor looking in open bins. Long shot then moves up behind him and shows him lifting burnt red tops out of bin.







Sixth shot: Extreme close up.

Plan shot of a table with newspapers falling on top of eachother, showing headlines about evidence found against Huntley etc.

 


Seventh shot: Mid shot/ close up.

Tracking shot of Ian in a bathroom, girls struggling as Ian chokes them. Frosted glass effect so can’t really see what’s happening.




Eighth shot: Tracking long shot.

  Tracking shot from behind. Showing person walking through forest. Tracking stops, person walks forward a few more steps then stops and screams (has found burnt girls bodies) – shot cuts black directly after scream.

Ninth shot: Cuts to writing:

Based on the true story of the disappearance of Holly Banks and Jessica Chapman: 2002.



Original cast listing for film: 23/11/10.


 

• Holly Banks played by Anna Powell.

 



• Ian Huntley played by Eddie Hobbs.

 




• Jessica Chapman played by Sophie Rowe.

 


• Newsreader played by Amy Franczak.




• Policewoman played by Katie Porter.

Person walking through the forest played by Annette Russell

Full synopsis of film. 09/11/10.

  Our main task is to create the first two minutes of a film. My partner and I decided to make a social realist film out of the options of horror, thriller and social realist. For inspiration and ideas we decided to do research using old newspapers and the internet of news stories we could use to make a film out of. We finally decided upon making a film based upon the story of Holly Banks and Jessica Chapman's abduction in 2002 by Ian Huntley. 

   We were given the choice of three genres: social realist, thriller or horror. We chose to do a social realist film because it gave us a wider choice of subjects that could be more original than the generic stalker thriller film for example. We also had the idea of adapting a real life story as well to make a more interesting storyline, but keeping it simple at the same time.

   This is a basic synopsis of the whole film:
  The opening of the film will show flashbacks of the girls leaving the house of one of the girls, clips of interviews and television newsreels etc. After we've seen the flashbacks, the film will then cut to the title.
  The beginning of the actual film, after the title sequence has shown, then reverts back to the family barbeque Jessica and Holly were attending when they left to buy some sweets, never to be seen again. The search of the neighbourhood would then be shown and full interviews with various people from the neighbourhood people including Ian Huntley inferring he was one of the last to see the girls in the neighbourhood. Two investigations would then be performed on Huntley's surroundings as his interview led him to be a suspect. Evidence of the girl's burned shirts are found on the second inspection, Ian and his partner (Maxine Carr) are then arrested. The next scene then shows the gameskeeper finding the burnt bodies in a ditch in a forest. Ian's court case then follows. The case trial would show Huntley lying and clips to show his imagined events. However, evidence would then be given (with clips again, of the evidence being found and the newspapers announcing it) and the film would end with Huntley being arrested.

GarageBand. 18/10/10

GarageBand is a programme used for creating music to accompany films. When thinking about what kind of music you want to accompany your film you need to think about the following things first:

• Whether the music is made to the film, or vice versa.
• Structural concepts, imagining the music as a graph with heightened volume or build up creating a ascension in your graph.
• Tension, looking at your film and finding points where tense music would add to the atmosphere.
• Impact points where you want the viewer to pay particular attention, then finding the instrument to compliment this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1swPZzxv0tI
  This link takes you to the short film: 'The Dark Side of the Lens.'
  This particular film was edited to the music. The music would have been created first and then an editor would become a team with the composer to work together to reach the final film. The main thing that creates tension in this film in the rhythm of the music.

This is my first attempt at creating a graph of the score of music. It represents the score of the film 'The Dark Side of the Lens.'

Preliminary Excercise. 5/10/10

  Our task was to create  a continuity sequence involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair with another character, with whom she exchanges a few lines of dialogue.

    The following things had to be included and shown clearly in the sequence:

• Match on action - keeping different shots making sense when editing them together.
• Shot/Reverse shot - moving from person to person when talking.
• 180 degree rule - keeping the camera on one side of the scene so it makes sense to the audience.

   We first made a storyboard for the filming of the sequence, then went on to film it. After filming we uploaded it to iMovie and edited it for it to make sense. The only problem we found in the process was trying to get the door walked through in the same place on the screen, as mentioned in my post about iMovie. However, we did make a mistake in the first shot of the film as the actress sat on the bench later in the film, wasn't shown there through the glass of the door in this shot. To fix this we would have reshot it but in the end didn't have time.

iMovie Skills. 12/10/10

  Previously, I've only used Windows Movie Maker to edit movies. However, in the first few weeks of AS Media I've learnt how to use iMovie. I learnt how to import clips I've filmed on a video camera, and how to do continuity editing. As I mentioned in the post about filming 'The Breakfast Club', I think this is the most important part of editing a scene of a film. I learnt how to edit using Match on Action whilst doing the Preliminary task, where me and a partner had to make sure the filming and editing of someone walking through a door made sense. We found it quite difficult to try and get the door in approximately the same place on the screen each time - as during filming we had to have a shot from either side of the door whilst the actor was walking through it. We didn't manage to get it exact, but by using one of the tools on iMovie, me and my partner managed to get it quite close. So far in the course I've also learnt how to give a movie I've made credits and a title and how to crop and cut down clips of film.

  During the rest of the course I think I should concentrate on learning how to edit and film continuously so any film clips I make make complete sense and have no gaps. However, this does half rely on the standard of filming as well as editing and iMovie skills.

Filming 'The Breakfast Club'. 4/10/10

  Whilst filming the scene from 'The Breakfast Club', I learnt about master shots in film. The master shot of this particular scene was a high view point shot from the top corner of the room, as we attempted to recreate as a class when filming (the master shot being one camera shot that is repeated throughout the filming.) I attempted to count the amount of times the master shot was shown in this particular scene, and counted three out of around twelve separate shots.


  I played Claire in the filming, and had to walk through each part of the scene I appeared in before filming them. I also learnt that it's necessary to begin filming at least 10 seconds before saying action so as to give plenty of room on the tape for editing between shots, and so as not to miss any of the acting on film.


  In editing the film on iMovie afterwards, I learnt how to cut scenes down to exactly the point I want, and the rules of continuity editing. (e.g. the 180 degree rule) The main thing I learnt is that continuity editing is extremely important in editing as this is what makes the filming make sense to the audience.

Comparing how the title sequences of ‘The Island’ and ‘The Proposal’ are constructed to draw in the target audience. 27/09/10

The opening sequences of films, though short, give the audience a good idea of a few things to do with the film. These would include the tone, often where the film is set, the actors that appear in the film and an inference as to what the film is wholly about. I’m going to compare two completely opposite film opening sequences - ‘The Island’ and ‘The Proposal’. The first being a typical film in the sci-fi/action genre, the second being a romantic comedy.
   Before the title sequence begins, all films have the film company(s) logos shown that were used to create the film. In the case of ‘The Island’, the company logos are shown on a plain black background, zooming toward the audience and out of the shot. The first logo shown is Dreamworks, with the logo following for Time Warner Company.
   In ‘The Proposal’, the first company logo shown is Touchstone Entertainment, followed by Mandeville Films. The song ‘Find My Way’ by The Gabe Dixon Band kicks in as the logo for Mandeville Films is being shown. In comparison, in ‘The Island’, as the words “Dreamworks Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present” appear in plain white capital lettered font - after the logos have been shown - the noise of wind can be heard clearly in the background and the music doesn’t cut in until the first shot of the title sequence. In ‘The Proposal’ the title sequence begins directly after the film company logos have been shown by cutting straight to a point of view shot of someone walking through a forest. The words “Touchstone Pictures presents” then appears from left to right over the top of the shot of forest, in plain white capital lettered font again.
   In the first scene of the title sequence of ‘The Island’, the camera cuts straight to a shot of clouds, where the music cuts in. The music has no words, just harmonies and instrumental to introduce the film.  Even as the music has begun, the wind can still be heard over the top. The shot zooms slowly closer to earth, as the clouds disperse we can see land surrounded by dark waters – the first inference of an island, where the film is predominantly set. The main actors name is shown as the camera is zooming into the island. The font is the same as that of the presenting font.
  ‘The Proposal’s title sequence carries on with the point of view shot of forest. The shot then begins to zoom out until we can see shelves of books surrounding, and realise that the forest shot is on a television. The shot carries on zooming out until the audience can see the back of an actresses head. This uses the same technique as ‘The Island’, when first showing Scarlett Johansson in the title sequence. In ‘The Island’, an extreme close-up shot of a woman’s shoulder is shown; with the material she’s wearing flying in the wind, obscuring the shot slightly. Having the first shot of the actress from behind makes the audience unsure as to who it is, creating mystery. However, in ‘The Proposal’, it quickly cuts to a medium close up shot of the actress from the front, as the name of Sandra Bullock appears in the same font as the presenting, directly beneath her head, making it known as to who she is. Similarly, as the shot in ‘The Island’ is being screened, the name of the actress appears in the bottom right corner, still in the same font as the first actor’s name, telling us that the actress being shown is Scarlett Johansson, though we don’t fully see her face until around 1:30 seconds in.
   In both films, the audience can immediately guess a certain amount of knowledge on the characters shown. For example, after Bullock has been introduced in ‘The Proposal’, the camera circles slowly around her, zooming out at the same time. By doing this, the shot shows the characters home and we can see that she’s extremely tidy, as the room she’s in is tidy and minimalist. Also shown in this shot is the main location of the film; through the window of the characters house, we can see the sky scrapers of a city.  
   Similarly, when Johansson is first shown in ‘The Island’, we can see she’s clad in white and her outfit has a lot of material to it. This, traditionally points to wealth, which links to the storyline of the film and introduces her character, even if only in a minimal way.
  The title of ‘The Island’ fades into the middle of the following shot. As the camera is moving over dark waters – creating a creepy atmosphere - the title fades in. The title font is separate to what we’ve previously seen in the title sequence; it’s more decorative, causing it to stand out easily amongst the rest.  In comparison, ‘The Proposal’s title is in the same font as the previous company credits, only on a slightly larger scale, causing it to stand out more.  
  Both films show the female lead in the title sequence before the male. In ‘The Island’, Ewan McGregor, though mentioned first in company credits, isn’t shown until around 1:20 minutes in, where-as Johansson is shown 0:36 seconds in. Similarly, in ‘The Proposal’, Ryan Reynolds, though being second in the company credits, isn’t shown until 1:15 minutes in, where-as Bullock is shown at 0:50 seconds. The whole time it takes ‘The Proposal’ to present their company credits is 2:38 minutes, the last name mentioned being the directors. In comparison, the time it takes ‘The Island’s company credits to screen is 1:32 minutes and the last names mentioned are the film’s editors. This could indicate the importance of jobs on the films, as ‘The Island’ would require more CGI and therefore more editing than ‘The Proposal’, this teams names would be mentioned last.
   The target audiences of ‘The Island’ and ‘The Proposal’ are hard to decide. Generally, the two films have a mass target audience, though ‘The Proposal’s range would be larger than ‘The Island’s, because the age certificate is a 12 so the mass audience starts off younger. Also, as ‘The Island’ is a sci-fi and some may find the genre isn’t to their taste or they may find it slightly scary, this limits the amount of people who would want to watch it.