Planning The Film

Paige, who will play Anna

         In the film opening our main female character will be present, 'Anna'. Another will be present who will be our ghostly creepy character (which will be the ghost of Anna). The audience will know who the main protagonist is through the use of close ups, we will do this to allow the audience to really connect with Anna, also as she will be the only main character in the scene. There is one binary opposition in terms of Proppian roles, this will be Anna vs her ghost self. This fits in well with the theme of the film as the idea  is that she is her own worst enemy, and at war against herself. The audience will know this by the narrative and dialogue between her and her dad. In terms of casting we have an idea for a main character, she is a young dark haired girl with a slight rebel side (left). We want her to wear average teenage attire when she is playing Anna. When she is playing her ghost self we want her to wear a white nightie with bare feet, messy hair and ghostly white make-up.  We will film at a friends house. It is an average sized family cottage based in Ombersley, it is exactly how we want it and suits our storyboard. We want the interior of the house to look as if the girl is unpacking and just moved in, we will need props such as boxes. We'd like to create a slightly creepy atmosphere with tense moments and plenty of enigmas. In terms of mise-en-scene we will create an awkward atmosphere and the feeling of a paranormal thing being present through the use of camera shots, angles and close ups. Almost all of the filming is going to be indoors so we have little need to worry about weather. We are going to use the local churchyard for some filming and have asked the church verger, he said this was fine as long as we didn't film any new graves, as this is disrespectful to families. For example, we can't show a grave that was put there this year but can film the ancient graves. We will film just before dusk so the lighting shouldn't be a problem. We will use enigma codes to ensure the audience want to keep watching, we will do this by using shots to give the idea that another person or spirit is present and plenty of unanswered questions. Action codes will be used and by the end of the sequence the audience should feel on edge, tense and interested to find out more, they will know who the main character is and the basic story line. We will use white writing on a black background for our titles with eerie fonts. Smooth transactions mixed with sudden flashes of scene to credit. The information on the titles will be; "Decorus Nex productions presents", "starring Paige Sturgeon", "Filmed, edited and produced by Hannah and Georgia" and any other necessaries entered at a later date. 

The house that we plan to use

Time Plan

Casting: We chose our actress quite quickly after are planning began. But we wanted to get a actress at least by Christmas so we could record over the holidays

Location: Find the location was quick because our actress lives near a creepy looking graveyard and strange and creepy looking houses and abandoned areas. We were able to find this location at least 2 weeks before the Christmas holidays began

Rehearsing: First rehearse took place on Wednesday  1st of December at 4'clock at the found location, Another on the 8th of December and the of December.

Film: Filming took place between 19th of December ( first part of filming ), none filmed over 24/25/26th of December, continued filming on 28th and 29th for a short period and finished filming Wednesday 5th of January.

Editing: Editing started 13th of January, editing took a long time due to technical problems, finished editing on the Friday 4th of January. During this the technology didn't allow us to use some of what we filmed so between the beginning of the editing and the deadline we re-filmed a lot of our work.

Script

Our script was brief but necessary to the narrative.




Anna: "Hello puss"


Anna: "Hello? Hello? Hello?"


*Scream*

Animatic

This is our animatic, it shows our film in drawn stages.

Research and Planning - Planning the film

After discussing the plan with my partner, Hannah, we have come up with this unique idea and film title.

The proposed house

Our film will be called "Purgatory",  we feel is a nice title for our film, suiting the genre and the story line, as it reflects our characters inner feelings.
As our film genre is horror/supernatural/haunting, we have decided that our main character is going to be a helpless female, named Anna, who lives alone in a small cottage near a churchyard. She's unpacking boxes when she hears a funny noise and finds herself alone in a room with something evil. We will be using a lot of close up shots to allow the audience to really connect with the female character. The start of the film will mostly be montages and spooky shots using lots of canted angles and colour change, along with speed changes and darkening. 

At the moment we have a potential female lead, Anya, that hopefully we could cast but we are still looking into it.

We have found a suitable location. We want the set to look fairly new. The character lives alone comfortably in her own space so the house is relatively messy yet organised.

The film starts when our female character has just returned to her house, the location is right next to a grave yard, the scene will start with a montage of establishing shots of the area and graveyard.  Anna will then enter, filmed from within the house, as if someone is watching, the lights will be dark, as if it is night, the credits will then appear, the words will fade to black and the shot will reappear when Anna turns the light on, using a close up of the hand and match on action. Anna will then enter the living room and unpack a box, this scene will include match on action shots as the opens the door and POV shots as she looks at things from the box, such as family photos. The idea is that Anna has just moved out from her family home. Anna then hears a noise upstairs, she looks, gets up and goes upstairs, she will slowly and cautiously walk into a dark empty room, adding tension to the atmosphere. She walks slowly towards the door, opens it, enters and a scream is heard. The scene will end here on a cliffhanger. We will use lots of close ups, match on action shots, establishing shots, canted angles and mid-shots, accompanied by many titles with additive dissolve transitions to give a creepy effect. 

Audience Profile

A typical audience member for my film will be between 15 and 25, generally male but perhaps female, middle class, perhaps a student educated to A level. One word to sum up my audience might be 'individualistic'. A typical audience member for my film might spend their spare time doing things such as going to live music events, surfing the web, studying, and might be a film fanatic. I imagine my typical audience may be drinkers, perhaps smokers, who enjoy socialising and reading.


Male: 70%

Female: 30%

Age Group: 16-25

Brands:

Clothes: Attitude, Darkside, Phaze.

Shoes: Converse, Doc Martens, Babychams. 

Alcohol: Cider, Spirits, Beer.

Bands:

Kings of Leon

Hed PE 

Metallica

Film and T.V.:

Film: The Grudge, Saw (1-7), Donnie Darko, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, The Ring, The Mist, IT, The Others, Hostel, Final Destination. 

T.V:  Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Ghost Whisperer, True Blood, Being Human, Heroes.

Demographic:

My film is mainly aimed at males, aged 16-25

My film will be aimed at C1, C2 and D

Psycho-graphic

Mainstreamers: people who don’t like to be different but are conventional in their tastes and aspirations

·   Traditionalists: people who don’t like change and are very
       set in their ways

·         
     Hedonists: people who just want to have a good time

·         
Individualists: people who want to stand out from the crowd
       and like to think for themselves

· Rebels: people who don’t want to conform but challenge the traditional way of doing things.

My film will be aimed at Rebels, Hedonists and Individualists.

Thir13en Ghosts Analysis

In this post I will analyse the opening scene to Thir13en Ghosts. The scene starts with the Columbia production credit, however this has been edited and darkened and accompanied by creepy, eerie noises. This is then followed by another dark animated production credit for Dark Castle Entertainment. The scene then starts with a dark scrap yard with a car hanging overhead, the camera seems hand-held and swirls to the side. The titles appear from the front in a yellow, scary block letter font. The sound is intense and asynchronous. The angle of the camera then continues to swoop around, as if the audience are floating, much like a ghost, the audience should have established by now through use of sound, title and camera angles that the film is a supernatural horror. A piece of material suddenly appears on the left adding to the intensity and giving an idea that there is something strange going on as it moves in the wind, which seems almost unearthly. Large floodlights in the sky provide some light and give the scene an eerie glow. More shreds of material continue to move in a creepy manor as the camera fans around to more cars on this deserted, almost 'ghost town' scrap yard. This is followed by more titles and then the title, the title shines through the writing as if looking through a keyhole. The trucks then appear breaking through the gate ruining the unearthly silence of the scene. The scene then continues with an overhead shot of the trucks, as if they are being watched.

Research and Planning: Narrative Theory

Roland Barthes - Narrative Codes


Codes are combinations of technical features that have a specific meaning, Roland Barthes suggests that there are 3 different theories of codes.


 The first being Hermeneutic Code, sometimes called the Enigma Code, this refers to part of the story that is not fully explained, leaving the audience with unanswered questions or 'enigmas', hence the story becomes a mystery to the reader. The purpose of this is typically to keep the audience intrigued and guessing until the final scenes when all is revealed and closure is achieved. For example, in the opening scene of Dexter shown above, we see Dexter doing normal day to day things but in a very sinister and slow way, this provides the audience with enigmas and questions about him and what he does, why is he so sinister?, and makes the audience to want to carry on watching.


The second is the Proairetic Code, this is used to build tension and suspense and refers to any other action that indicates to the audience that something else is going to happen, allowing the reader to make guesses on what will happen next in the narrative. For example,  as shown in the opening scenes for Dexter, the blood drips in a sinister way, which suggests that something unpleasant will happen at some point and adds tension.


The third is Semantic Code, this is the way images or music might be used to mean something in addition to what it already shows. For example,  as shown in the opening scenes for Dexter, we see him doing things such as tightening his shoe laces, although to the audience it appears as if he is strangling someone, however, this is filmed in a 'macro' style, and accompanied by the strange angles, this depicts a world within a world. The images do not mean what they might mean if filmed differently.




Levi Strauss suggests that in all narratives there are binary oppositions, for example, villian vs hero. In Dexter this is Dexter vs everyday life or Dexter vs his psycho serial killer side.

The Grudge 2 Analysis

(0:00 – 3:11)

In order to analyse the opening sequence of The Grudge 2 (Takashi Shimizu, 2006) I will look at the different micro elements and try and establish how they are used to set up character, narrative and genre. When the film begins, we see a black background with white text appearing, telling a story, introducing the audience to the film, this builds suspense and it gives the audience a slight idea on what the film is about. The word 'curse' changes to red and fades after the other text, leaving it remaining alone on the screen, allowing the audience a small insight into the nature of the film, we then know that in this film, there is a theme of isolation, lonliness and evil, it also specifies that the genre of the film is haunting or horror. 'Fury' also changes red and lingers on screen, this lingering and changing colour reiterates the importance of the words. Non-digetic soft high pitch ambient sound is playing in the background to add to the unnerving feeling of the film, this is later found to be the signature theme tune. We see an aerial establishing shot of a city to set the scene, location and period, Tokyo, roughly estimated to be early 2000’s . The camera then cuts to a low angle shot where we as the audience are looking up at a flat or apartment to show in more detail the location, asynchronous sound is used as we hear the birds squawking but do not see them. We see a close up shot of a woman cooking food in the kitchen whilst a man sits at the table connoting a sexist patriarchal scene with male dominance, later challenged by the presence of a female monster with male victims. The kitchen where the two characters are sitting has low lighting which sets an intense mood and atmosphere in the room, there is no noise other than digetic background noise of the frying and birds, this is synchronous sound, the sound of the hot oil in the pan has been synchronised and projected so we can hear it and it gives us an idea of how hot the oil is so we can then identify that the oil is going to play an important part in the scene. The combination of these things makes the audience feel that the two characters have had an argument and that there is friction between them. This is appropriately followed on by sarcastic comments made by the male to the female, she then serves the man his breakfast, but just before she moves away she hovers over him with the frying pan with an angry expression on her face. The audience then can identify what is going to happen. The man is shown dead on the floor while the woman calmly sips a coffee, accompanied by low eerie music. The man is lying on the floor with blood pooling around him. This scene is unnerving and odd to the audience as the woman is so calm, it builds tension and creates intrigue and enigmas for the audience. We as the audience can now expect that the narrative will be scary and demonic, perhaps even  with possessive and evil themes. The scene fades to white and a spot of blood, or what we as the audience believe is blood, appears accompanied by tense music, more blood appears and fades as the names of cast and directors appear in red writing. As the blood droplets fall they are escorted by a sound, almost like rain, the pace of the music increases as does the sound of the falling droplets, this then speeds up and the blood falls to form a Japanese symbol, assumingly translating to ‘The Grudge’. The number two then appears and fades to form a red area to the right of the symbol, in which the English for ‘The Grudge 2’ appears. This then fades and spirals accompanied by a water like sound form black lines,  almost like hair, a popular theme used in Japanese films, especially of this genre.  A red background appears and the audience can hear a low rumbling sound of water and perhaps thunder, accompanied by low music. The black ink like lines create different patterns as the names of cast and crew appear in a liquid style background.  We can then assume that this style of black lines and ink type writing will be echoed in the film, along with the signature theme tune. 

Research & Planning: Genre theory

'Genres are instances of repetition and difference' (Neale 1980,48). Also, 'difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre'


This basically means that genres use typical conventions for narrative, cinematography, mise-en-scene, sound, editing, the cast and iconography, however there needs to be differences in order for movies to be succesful, 






The Grudge 2 uses conventional effects and styles, for example the narrative is conventional, innocent school girls and women are the victims whilst men are almost unnoticed. It uses typical technical features such as jump cuts and dark lighting and clothing, the sound is typically eerie with loud and quiet moments and typical iconography, such as dark abandoned house, creepy area of Japan in dull weather with innocent school girls. 

Main Coursework Introduction

The main coursework task is to research a film genre of our choice and produce 2 minutes of an opening scene to a film. To do this I will work with Hannah Scott. We have chosen the genre of supernatural horror.  Above is a basic storyboard of images found in supernatural horror films.

Pre-Production Tasks

Intro
The preliminary task is a continuity editing task which is basically filming and editing someone opening a door, crossing a room/walking down a corridor, sitting down with another person and having a conversation. This will show a match on action, a shot-reverse shot and the 180 degree rule, also including a cut in and cut away. 


Continuity Editing

Continuity editing is used in television and film to smooth over the discontinuity of the editing process, it is ‘invisible’ editing that cannot be seen by the audience, this process includes things like match on action and the 180 degree rule.

Match on action is when a movement occurs, then the shot is cut, the movement continues in a different shot allowing the scene to appear completely smooth and the cut is almost unnoticable to the audience.

As demonstrated in this example video.

http://www.youtube.com/v/BRRavGgX1pw

The 180 degree rule is a film making rule in continuity editing that states that the two characters should always appear on the same side of the screen (to the audience), this is done by only filming 180 degrees left and right, for example, if you were filming a conversation, and you crossed the 180 degree line, it would appear to the audience as if both characters were on the same side of the screen.

The correct use of the 180 degree rule is demonstrated below in this example video.

http://www.youtube.com/v/IiIUwsQV2uU


Risk Assessment
Things that could go wrong: 
Trip with camera (perhaps whilst walking backwards to film)
Drop camera
Fall down stairs whilst filming 
Break camera
Drop camera in puddle (electrocution)
Trip over tripod
We filmed near a construction area, so avoid hazards
Don't lick the batteries




How we prepared for filming

We found a location in college which was suitable for our film, we chose this location because it suited our needs for filming, it looked how we wanted it to and it was a safe and realistic place to film. We created a storyboard which covered the following events: Hannah walking through a construction site mission impossible style, walking sneakily down the corridor, looking around, running down the corridor, entering a room (which was our eye-line match and match on action), a room for a conversation (this is where we filmed our cutaway). We decided to have a student rolling her eyes as our cutaway as it suited the scene and made the story easier to understand.

Photos 

Production
Overall filming went well, with a few problems with the camera and the areas in which we were able to use. The storyboard helped as it allowed us to see which shots we needed to film and where. We had trouble with the camera and the weather stopped us from filming outside as much as we would have liked, however we slightly modified to scene to resolve this. During this project we learnt quite a lot about filming and planning, about how important it is to plan and that you need more than one shot in order to create an effective match on action.

Targets

My 3 targets that I need to improve on before my main coursework are -

1. Planning, consider timing, shots and styles before day of filming.
2. Test all equipment first, as in the preliminary task our camera kept freezing.
3. Practice using the editing software and cameras.

Scene 1 - Knife

Scene one: Knife

When Ben and the woman were sat in the dining room, the two-shot, a feature of cinematography was used to show the couple conversing.

Close-ups were also used several times during this scene, particularly when Ben accidently stabs the woman’s hand, this is done to show her pain and emotion.

During this scene, Point-of-view shots are used to give the audience a better concept of the situation, especially when the knife is introduced into the scene.

During the scene the lighting is dark and mysterious to create a dangerous and flirtatious atmosphere to engage the audience.

The characters in this scene were both well dressed indicating they’d met on a night out, giving the audience an idea of their personalities.

The props used in the kitchen indicate that the house is not hers, this is reiterated by the conversation Ben and the woman have.

A cut in is used many times during the scene/during the conversation for example when the woman pours Ben another drink, the camera cut’s in to show the detail of the lime being placed into the glass. This gives the audience more insight into the characters activities.

An ellipsis was used when the scene changes from the kitchen to the hallway to remove an irrelevant part of the film or to hide part of the scene from the audience to create intrigue.

The 180 degree rule is applied when Ben and the woman are talking, this is part of continuity editing and ensures characters appear in the correct places on screen.

There is no ambient sound used in the background apart from the dialogue, the scene appears completely silent, this is to increase the idea that they are alone.

Synchronous sound is used when Ben stabs the table, he screams at the same time as the impact, this gives the audience a shock as he could be screaming from pain or fear, and the audience is unsure if he has stabbed himself (as his hands are not in the shot).

Sound effects are used to enhance the sound of the knife in the table, it is much louder than it would normally be, this is to add suspense and perhaps make the audience jump.

  

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