June Year 10
During this month I handed my still picture Fragerence advert and powerpoint coursework in. We also did the written exam where everyone had to watch an extract from a film and write down things about the Mise én scene, soundtrack and editing and what effect it creates.
Tuesday 13th September
Today in class I studied the way that the Nils Abden Opliv director of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” framed various shots, for example the opening of the film has an extreme close-up of a man’s hands opening a parcel made of paper at a side view.
Tuesday 4th October
Today I created a blog that will help me record all my research and planning online. It will be very useful to be able to link up with the rest of my group even when I'm not in the class as I will be able to see what they have planned online.
My teacher will check my blog posts several times a week.
Thursday 6th October
During the break we spent further time discussing the Thriller/Crime genre and how to use it in our film opening. At the moment we are focusing on making a Crime-hybrid type of film. Sophie Scott emailed her 'Skeleton' treatment for the Crime idea we have been talking about. At the moment it is still very much vague but we will definantly expand upon it.
Monday 10th October
Today we discussed more about our idea and Aidan showed us some scenes from “The Blair Witch project.” We decided to use some handheld but we would make sure not to use a whole lot of it. We decided to try to intertwine Aidan’s with Sophie’s and I’s crime idea. We've decided to have an ameatur crime/horror hybrid. Tuesday 11th October
Today we got the treatments we each did, and decided to further expand upon Aidan's, I am going to post the treatment with my own suggestions.
Treatment:
5 boys are returning from a journey at night. They were messing around in the park and have just got back. They climb over the fence, and look over at the playground. A dark figure appears to be on the swings. The boys look at it for a while. One of the boys go over to the figure. About 10 meters from the figure it moves, the boy stumbles falls over in fright and the boys start to run away. After about 30 seconds of running the boy holding the camera appears to fall over. After this the scene cuts to the camera on the floor the next morning. The boy holding the camera is missing. The boys debate whether or not to go looking for their friend. In the end they agree, and the opening ends with them climbing back over the fence.
We decided to add a bit of handheld camera work to add a sense of immersion but to also create more of the horror feel. But because we understand that may confuse the audience we have alot of the parts from a still camera view too. For example, we can have the handheld view of the boy pointing the camera toward the object of interest for a second, some dialogue then switch to a different camera view of them all, seeing the boy with the camera. Doing this I think would mix up the camera work and not make it too boring.
Monday 17th October
I have also done a character profile which I will post below.
I did Aidan's character as he said he was going to act.
Aidan’s character would be the first person to venture toward the girl and fall to the ground (Due to supernatural causes) he is the type of person who is very full of himself and acts extremely cocky (Explaining why he wants to go toward to the girl to maybe show off to his friends.) He will be the one trying to show his dominance over the group and would more or less try to tell the others what to do. He’ll wear casual looking clothes perhaps jeans etc.
Today in the lesson we organized the call sheet for the shoot of the scenes. I will be responsile for making the third call sheet while the others are doing the first and second.
GCSE B324: Production Portfolio in Media Studies
CALL SHEET 3
Props: Teddy bear (Ruined, old etc)
Night gown.
We only need a little due to the scene we're shooting.
Film: Banshee
Length: One minute
Shoot Date:
Location (Add google map picture): School near belvidere and at a park in cobham.
Who is needed (a list of people) times (9.00am to 4pm etc): Tuesday10am 11am then Saturday 1pm
Sophie Scott :
Aidan Marshall :
Laine-Brooke Thomas:
(Henry Nicholson
Harry Normington
Paris McAuliffe) --> TBC
(Henry Nicholson
Harry Normington
Paris McAuliffe) --> TBC
Tuesday 18th October
Today we’ve pretty much decided the name for our film, “Banshee” we are still continuing ideas on how to make the girl clearly supernatural. We've decided to have a close-up on the girl and use an after effects effect to make the eye seem different. Either that or use contanct lenses
Something along the lines of this.Thursday 10th November
Today we discussed about possible horror conventions we could put into our idea. One idea I had brought up a while back was brought back up today. The idea was "False alarms" and the idea that was suggested was to have someone where a person is wearing some kind of horror mask which is then actually revealed to be a mask and presents no threat. I thought we could have a false alarm in it somewhere, maybe not that specific one but the rest of the group decided that it's too late to go chaning what we've already got. So we're sticking with the one we've got and will expand on that base idea.
Aidan also looked at some camera angles from other horror films and we'll choose which ones we might use aswell or not. Here are some of the ones we're thinking of using:
Close-up
Extreme close-up
Establishing shot
Low angle shot
Dutch tilt shot.
Tracking shot
Pan shot
Friday 11th November
This is the opening sequence for the film “The Shining”. This title has shots of the surrounding area much like out own original idea. In this particular opening it shows a car’s journey through the countryside to a destination while showing its travel area as it goes on. The genre for this film is horror/thriller much like our own. Although alot of these shots are done from helicopters and are practically impossible for us to do, we can still take ideas from this to use in our own, for example the certain shots this focuses on.
This is from the film "The Thing" which is again, a horror film. The opening to this consists of several close-up shots of diffferent things that may have relevence to the story of the film with a video effect overlaying it. We can defefitely take ideas from this, such as the video effect to create a blurry effect which may drown out the item a bit, placing the sense of curiosoty of what that thing might actually be. The title's colour tone also changes subtly each slide which is to perhaps keep it slightly more interesting. Both these effects are things we will likely be able to accomplish with 'Adobe after effects'.
This film "Six feet under" which is a phrase for being buried after death would pretty much sum up what kind of genre this film is, a thrillet/horror. Alot of the shots are ones of far away things or close-ups of something. There isn't really an inbetween. There are slides which have shots of a dead person, again showing that it's a horror type genre. Although we can't take much from this film in the respect of shots we could still take ideas from the type of music used. But that goes for all of them.
Monday 14th November:
Today we started to look at the effects which we could use in the film opening. We are looking at sound effects for the final piece and we are also looking at what effects we can use on the girl on the swing. We are looking at skin and eye colour and transparency. We also want to put mist into the shots after we have filmed. For these effects we will use in Adobe After Effects. We are also going over the storyboard and title sequence in pen, ready for scanning. We hope to start filming on this Friday (18/11/2011)
Tuesday 15th November:
Today Sophie fine lined the title sequence and storyboard, after we had all made changes to it from each of our ideas. I will post them below.
Part 1 of the storyboard
Part 2 of the storyboardAnd finally the last portion of it. 
Thursday 17th November
Today my group and I have decided that we will aim to get the filming done next Friday as that is when most people are free. (Actors aren't free tommorow) if we can't get it done by Friday we will result to just using ourselves in it but we are indeed hoping to get it done as soon as possible.
We have also asigned different priorities to each group member. For example I am in charge to get sound effects and tense sort of music for the editing. Sophie is gong to find a night gown and a teddy bear. Aidan will try to get a big torch/lantern.
We also came up with the concept for the "Banshee." The example I am going to use is "Samara" from the film 'The Ring' The long hair covering the face, white dress, overall innocent look is the sort of thing I'm trying to create, and this character is a relevant example and inspiration.
The actor we have for this particular part may not be as young as "Samara" but we could still try to get the innocent effect by; having the dress, a stuffed bear and being on the swings.
1st December
Today during lunch we did some filming with just the three of us. Because the fourth person we needed couldn't make it that day so I just filmed the other two characters that didn't involve the third, we shot several scenes with more than ones angle each. We are hoping to get the girl scene done over the weekend. And finish off the bits without the swing and girl next week.
5th December
Over the weekend we didn't manage to get the night gown or teddy bear for the girl on the swing, but instead of doing nothing we shot some scenes for the opening title sequence. We are still on track to get the third actor for the 'three friends' bit done. We have arranged to meet again on saturday to finish off the filming of the swings and girl. Sophie said that she will look around a charity shop she knows to find a night gown. Aidan has offered to use his old bear
11th December.
I went over to Sophie's house to try and get the final piece of the filming complete. When we both went over to her friends house to collect her for filming she was in the shower, so we hung about and waited for 40 or so minutes. We went back and unfortunantly she had to go and get her brother, she didn't say where and there wasn't any other way, so we left it at that and thought about other possibilities.
12th December
Today me and Aidan went down to the upper junior's playground in search of a swingset, there was none. We were trying to think of what we could do, as using Sophie's friend was now out of the question. Mrs Mann offerred to drive us to a nearby park which has a swingset during lunch someday to get it done, so at the moment we need to think about who we can take along with us.
19th January
The production of the film opening has been late in the process, fortunantly I have been able to cut and order the raw footage into the correct places, Aidan has been gathering music/soundtrack to use in the film, alot of the things he has got sound good and we are starting to work out where to put them.
23rd January
We finished off adding the music to the clip and we are now starting to put together the text. Meaning the name of the actors, director and the name of the film. We will arrange a time to meet up with Greg so that he can help us to figure out how to use Adobe After effects, as it is something I am unfamiliar with.
After we have done that we'll move onto the idents, including the production company and the distribution company, which will both be made up and custom made to get as many marks as possible.
24th January
I started making notes about what my target audience for Banshee was like:
Age group: Teenagers, young adults. 17 and onward.
Gender: Possibly mainly Male because the genre is horror/thriller which may prove to appeal more to the male population, but can equally appeal to the female audience too.
Watch Films such as The Darkest Hour (Chris Gorak 2011) Fright Night (Craig Gillespie 2011) Underworld: Awakening (Mans Marlind 2012)
Groups:
Media: Smart phones (iphone, Blackberry) Apple Macs, Facebook, Twitter etc.
Clothes:
30th January
Today I finished off the market profile, gathering pictures of what our film's target audience might be. I will attatch the image below.
January 31st
Today we worked on the title sequence, we split a piece of paper into 9 and put in the different shots, ident and the final title adding what bits of text will go in each place. Example, 'Directed by' and 'Produced' we've taken screenshots of the night scenes which Mrs Mann said were good and added to the eerieness.
2nd February
Today I begun on one of our first idents, called "Shining Hammer Productions" Sophie said she liked it, I showed Aidan and he said "Yeah." After I have finished up editing the image I will upload it onto here and onto the movie itself.
Also, the whole group involving myself talked about what we were going to do with the clips I filmed two days ago, using Max as the makeshift banshee, everyone said that it looked good and had potential. Sophie has copied the movie file onto one of the other macs which has Premier so we can have a clip with the Max clip playing fadedly over the top. The reason why we had the figure with the red and black nylon is because of audience feedback, they had said that the link between day and night wasn't so clear. So we decided to have the banshee's "spirit" in the red nylon as if to say that in the day the banshee takes on the appearence of an innocent girl in white. A wolf in sheep's clothing. I will place pictures of the the "spirit" underneath.
3rd February
Today I finished making the first ident, the image is below
Today Aidan began finalizing the distribution company logo, we also did some research into other distribution companies from a blogger called "Dead Harvey" and the name we're planning on using for it is "Dead Simple." there were several similar examples such as "Anthem" and "Brain damage films" and "Breaking glass pictures" We haven't finally decided on the font and texture/colour of the title but we're thinking of doing a solid granite/stone type colour and texture. I have arragned a time to get help with After effects with Greg in 6th form for wednesday lunch.
