Filming Day 2

THURSDAY 16th FEBRUARY

Today was our second day of filming, and here's an insight as to how it went...

Today we had one of our props prepared today (the pushchair). Unfortunately we still haven't managed to get a doll, however I hope to have bought one before our next day of filming, which is on Saturday. Today went better than our first attempt at filming because we had more shots which we could take because of the addition of the pushchair, and we also had a lot more time to film as well. We still didn't manage to get as much done as we wanted to, however, because of the absence of the doll. However, overall I think our second day of filming went OK and we hope that Saturday will go even more smoothly.

Filming Day 1

 MONDAY 20th FEBRUARY

Our first day of filming didn't exactly go to plan...

We didn't get as much as we wanted to get done, due to a couple of reasons. The first and most important reason was the fact that we didn't have either of our two props (a doll and a pushchair). Because of our disorganisation as a group, we spent a lot of time today talking about what we would do if we had our props instead of actually doing it. This was a huge waste of time for all of us, and we only filmed 2-3 clips. We have learned from this mistake, and we all realise now how important it is to be prepared before filming.

Another problem with our filming was the location. Although we had to stick with it as we had no plan b, it wasn't as great as we thought it would be because the park we have chosen to film in has turned out to be quite popular. Whereas we were looking for the desolate, isolated and quiet feel, our chosen park is often busy and lively. This changes the whole atmosphere of our film, and we hope that the footage that we have so far and will have in the next few days will still be suitable for a thriller film. Our next day of filming will be on Thursday and I hope that that goes better than how today went!

Filming Day 3

SATURDAY 25th FEBRUARY

Today was our third day of filming and it went really good! We finally have a doll to film with (woohoo!) and so a lot of our footage was filmed today instead of on Monday or on Thursday. We didn't get everything done today, however, because we didn't have the pushchair seeing as we borrowed it from someone, and we weren't able to borrow it today. However, by next Monday we will have both the pushchair and the doll and so we can get the remaining scenes filmed and then we can start our editing process.

Props

After two days of filming we are quite far into our project now. We shouldn't need too much longer to get it finished filming-wise, and we will post as a group soon regarding those two days and how well (or not so well!) they went.

There has been a slight problem over this past week, however: we were not able to get hold of a rag doll which was crucial to our film's storyline. For this reason, we couldn't shoot several scenes of our opening which needed to be shot. Luckily I managed to pick one up today and so we can film with it on our third day of filming - however because of this slight hiccup we have been behind schedule and we should have got these scenes finished by now.

the doll which will feature in our film opening

I have definitely learned from this mistake - it was a problem for us to assume that we would be able to buy a rag doll from anywhere, and it was certainly a problem that we spent a lot of filming time searching for shops to buy one in instead of being able to get on with our filming. It's something that we've all learned from - we must remember to be prepared in the future, and have all props ready before they're needed.

Teacher Feedback

Rough Cut Deadline - next Thursday during our lesson (1st March)

Ideas for our soundrack .

I have made a post on Facebook asking people if they know of any "eerie" or "creepy" soundtracks which will be useful for when we produce our own soundtrack for our thriller. I will make a list of the songs people have suggested

1.  Moby - " First cool hive "
2. Flying Lotus " MmmHmm

With these recommendations of soundtracks and songs I hope that they will inspire us when making our own soundtrack for the opening of our thriller

Even though that both songs are a different genre of music, they might be able to help us to bond different sounds together so we will be able to make our own soundtrack.

Filming Schedule outside of college hours

We have decided that will we be filming some scenes of the opening of our thriller outside of college hours because the hours we have during college will not be enough for our opening to reach it's full potential . I also feel that filming outside of college hours will give us more hours where we can film precisely and accurately so we can achieve the best footage as possible.

The filming schedule above shows the dates and hours where we are hoping to film, however if we have to change any of the filming dates or hours this blog will be updated .

The Storyboard in more detail .

The reason why we produced a storyboard is because when coming to filming each scene of the opening of our thriller, it would help us to make our scenes more clear and helps us choose which camera shots we will be using in each section.The story board has each section of our opening of the thriller.

Part one of the storyboard sets the scene of the camera shots in the park, for example we will have a close up shot of the signs in a park for example "Children's play area ", this would make it clear to the audience where we are filming, I also feel that it will create an eerie atmosphere . The image below is part one of the storyboard.

Part two of the storyboard shows the camera angles in more detail, for example there is a over shoulder shot of the doll being pushed down the slide and a close up of the buggy  wheel whilst it is being pushed in the park. Having a story board at this scene will be very useful as we might forget to film that as I feel that is a significant part of our opening thriller.

The third part of the story board is the most important part because it's the scene we film where a bus drives past and reveals the man, this is the most important part of filming because it sums up what our thriller is about.

Risk Assessment

As I am going to be out of college whilst filming in a different location, there will be possible hurdles whilst on our travels which may enhance some danger.I will be going through a short risk assessment where I will be identifying any possible risks and saying how the risks could be avoided.

Risk 1 : There might be people in the park at the time during our filming hours where a piece of the filming equipment could be a danger towards them (i.e the tripod could fall on them ). This could be avoided by making sure the filming equipment is in our possession at all times .

Risk 2 : The second risk could be that there is a possibility that the filming equipment could get stolen. To avoid this, again we will ensure that the filming equipment is in our possession at all times.

Risk 3 : The third risk is that if it happens that there is bad weather, the camera could get damaged as water may enter which could damage the filming. This could be avoided by making sure that when we are not using the camera, it will be in the camera bag provided .

Risk 4 : The finally risk is that myself or others in my group could have an accident whilst filming or during our travel to the location, to avoid this from happening we will ensure that we act mature and safe at all times .

Target Audience

The target audience of a film is hugely important because it determines who watches it and who doesn't, based upon the content of the film. As a group we decided that our film would be targeted at 16-24 year olds, because we think that the younger generation would enjoy it more. Therefore overall I would rate it as a 15 because although that is one year below our suggested age range, rating it 18 would prevent 16 and 17 year olds from watching it and also would suggest that it would involve a lot of violence, drug abuse, sexually explicit content etc etc which it will not. A 15 is therefore appropriate because it prevents young teens from watching it but opens the film up to older teens as well.

Possible film ratings -

• U (universal)
• PG (parental guidance)
• 12A (12 accompanied)
• 12
• 15 - "these films may contain offensive or emotionally harrowing scenes or strong language and violence"
• 18 - "These films may contain extreme gore/violence and/or sexually explicit content"
• R18 (restricted 18 - these films contain sexually explicit content and are sold only in licensed sex shops/specially licensed cinemas)

Risk Assessment

I am going to complete a risk assessment for my group's thriller opening because as we are filming outside in a public location we need to be aware of potential risks and problems that could arise. We are filming in a park and so for this reason we need to be aware of certain things. The two most important things which we as a group need to take care of are -

1. other people who may be in the park at the time (though we aim to film in an empty park)
2. the filming equipment being stolen/lost

We will overcome the potential of lost equipment by making sure that we are always with the camera so that it doesn't go missing, and we will prevent it from being stolen by carrying it around in the camera bags so that we don't ever have it on display whilst it is not in use.

There are other things we need to be careful of, for example making sure that we have permission to film in our chosen park and also that we do not annoy other people by accidentally filming them. This will be overcome by filming in a park which is not popular and by not doing it during hours which children will obviously be there (i.e. after school times).

Intertextuality in films

In this blog I am going to be explaining what intertextuality is and give some examples from fairly recent films. 


But first of all, What is intertextuality?
Intertextuality describe's the visual reference between films. Films sometimes borrow aspects of one film and incorporate it into their own. This could be the mise en scene, sound, editing, characters etc. A viewer would need to see a certain film or text to understand the intertextuality.


Some examples of intertextuality?

Spoof films such as Scary Movie, are great examples of intertextuality because these films would not exist if they did not use intertextuality. A lot of the jokes from this film rely on the viewer having watched other films or texts.

Storyboard

Research into film audiences

As part of my research i am going to have a look at which age group of audiences attend which genre/sub-genre of films. This will be essential to marketing my movie as I need to know who the film is being made for. To find out this information I am going to use the Film Distributors' Association yearbook 2011.

 According to this book the highest no. of people that go the the cinema are from the ages between 50-59 and 0-9. Because we obviously cannot make a thriller for 0-9 year olds I think it would be best to target a middle aged audience.

The Genre of thriller films takes in 4.2% of all years box office increased from 4% in 2009 and 2.7% in 2008. The top 3 films in the thriller genre in 2010 were Shutter Island, The Town and The Wolfman. The top 2 Genre's in film is action(which takes in 26.4% of all years box-office) and drama(which takes in 18.1% of all years box-office) this is why I have been thinking to broaden my audience even further it would be a clever idea to make the sub-genre either Action or Drama.

The Park

As a group we are going to need to decide which park we are going to film in, because there are certain requirements which the park we film in needs to meet. For example, for our storyboard we have included "close up of swings" and "close up of see-saw". Therefore, the park we choose to film in will need to have both swings and a see-saw. 

Also, the park we film in will need to be completely empty. This could be a potential problem because parks are public spaces and therefore we cannot guarantee that any park will be completely available at any time. There are ways of getting around this; we could try to find a park in a desolate location which not many people use, and we could also try to film at a time when we think children would not be in the park.

Outline of Opening

In this blog I will outline what exactly will happen in the opening of our film, IMOGEN. We have five main scenes/clips which we will use and collaborate to create the opening as a whole. These five areas include - 

1. Cinematics of the park
2. Rag doll being played with in the park
3. The footsteps of an adult
4. Pushchair being pushed
5. The revelation of the adult

CINEMATICS OF THE PARK

This scene will be roughly 30-40 seconds long, and we will be filming it from a low point of view to give the impression that the park is being observed from a child's perspective. 

Shots we will use here -

• Pan of the park
• long shot of the park
• close up of any signs in the park (i.e. the park's name, "no dogs" etc etc)
• focus pull of swings (background blurry)
• close up of the empty roundabout spinning
• cinematics of empty pushchair
• low angle of the pushchair (being looked up at from child's perspective)

RAG DOLL BEING PLAYED WITH IN THE PARK

We intend on this scene being anything from 40-60 seconds, and this is also where the credits will begin to take place. We are going to use a discrete title sequence, and the following images will play in the background:

• Rag doll being pushed down the slide (over-the-shoulder shot of the rag doll)
• Camera at the bottom of the slide - rag doll hits camera on its way down
• Rag doll being pushed on the swings (camera just behind swing from a low angle, as if from a child's perspective)
• Camera on one end of the see-saw; rag doll on the other seat.

THE FOOTSTEPS OF AN ADULT

This will be a rather short clip, and it will show a man walking towards the pushchair. It will last 2-5 seconds, and the reason for it being shot is to lead the audience into believing that the father of the "child" playing is going to pick her up and take her home. (Whereas it was actually him playing all along).

PUSHCHAIR BEING PUSHED

Again, this clip will be short (roughly only 2-5 seconds long) and it will show the character leaving the park from a child's perspective. This will be done by shooting the park getting smaller and smaller in the distance.

THE REVELATION OF THE ADULT

This is the most crucial clip of the whole opening as it will reveal that the man was the one playing in the park all along. We will do this by shooting at a crossing (the man on one side; the camera on the other). The audience will be able to see the man with a pushchair, and will expect it to be carrying a little girl. A bus will pass, revealing the fact that in the pushchair is the rag doll and not a child. We are anticipating this clip to be roughly 10 seconds long, making the whole opening (if our outline is accurate) approximately 1 minute 50 seconds long.

Ideas of Locations where my Thriller could be filmed.

I took this photo of a canal which I thought would be a good possible location of where my thriller could be filmed. I think this location is suitable because filming in the night in this location could have a really good effect on the final product of the opening of the thriller.

I also chose this location because it is very close to the college which could be a pro when come to filming  . This location has got a lot of spots where it would be very nice to film the opening of the thriller, I think it would create an eerie feel to the thriller and would create suspense . 

My prelim evaluation

After reviewing my Prelim video for the second time I feel that there were a few areas of the video that could have been improved . The first area that could be improved was the amount of technical aspects that were in the video, meaning that I thought the video didn't withhold much of zest in the film itself. Another fault that was made in my Prelim video was the 180degree rule was broken whilst making the film. The picture below shows the 180degree and I will be explaining how it was not carried out in my Prelim.

The 180degree rule is a simple guideline which states that the two characters which are in the same scene should should always have the same left/right correlation between each other whilst filming, If this rule is broken it is known as the 'reverse angle'which is when the camera passes of an imaginary axis which connects the two characters .

It is clear to see in the two images on either side of this text the 180degree rule has been broken, as the first image on the left is filmed on the left shoulder which quickly switches to the right shoulder in the same scene.

However even though my prelim had a few faults, I believe that there were many positive outcomes whilst filming. The first positive outcome was that Foley sound was used which is natural sound which made our prelim seem more realistic and  added more effect to the video. The second positive outcome was that I feel that the editing of this video was really good which made the whole video run smoothly and also made the video more effective.