Ancillary Task: Poster Designs

On my poster design an initial thought was the importance of the recognition of the cast. The reason being Is that many film fans associate certain genres with certain actors. A film fan would recognise the name of the actors, associate them with Thrillers. Furthermore the font used is nothing over dramatic which infers to the audience the genre, Thrillers aim around a story that could seemingly happen in real life which is the reasoning behind the simple font. I have also used black as the font colour as the connotations include danger, death and suspicion. Psychologically we want the audience to think that they are in for thrills and suspense, where as if the writing was pink they would be expecting some sort of romance due to the connotations.

The up most important factor of the poster was the inclusion of our short name. As the most important factor it has to stand out. As changing the font would make the poster less aesthetically pleasing and would also confuse the audience I have just decided on using a larger font size. As said before I have used black due to its connotations.

I chose the image of the girl behind the glass as I thought it showed a correlation between the name of the film, which means to take or steal. It clearly shows what our short is about. You can indicate from the picture that the main protagonist is female due to the hair and shape of the body, the audience now it is about a girl. Secondly she is in a white background, which infers that she is the innocent victim or she is slightly insane. The picture successfully indicates the genre of our short, the idea of not being able to see the girls face and her hands pressed up against the glass all show her in danger.

This is a vital part of the poster. It shows all the important information that is relevant to the audience. It advertises by the mentioning awards which show that is has been recognised by film makers and viewers for excellence. This will help increase our global reach. The release date is important in letting the audience aware of when they can view it. Lastly, its important that the details of companies, actors and crew are mentioned to again advertise the film and show its professionalism. This all keeps to the same colours and fonts.

　

　
　

Ancillary task: Analysis of Psychological/Thriller posters

For our short we need to create a poster, to do this we needed to first gain ideas from similar films to help assist in the designing of our own. We looked at a variety of different films in the genre of Psychological/Thriller and decided on the best of the bunch to work with. We have decided on the posters below because as a group we felt that they best established the genre of there film. We hope that we will be able to use ideas from these posters in creating our own that has the same effect, and Cleary establishes the genre and infers to the audience what the film is about and what the audience may see happen.

The first film that I have looked at is Alfred Hitchcocks ‘Rear Window’. Made in 1954 the story revolves around a wheelchair bound photographer who has become convinced that his neighbour has committed a murder. First off the story line of the film is similar to our own, this initially caught my attention, and secondly the use of the camera in the poster as we too use similar props.

At first glance you can establish the genre, there is a number of ways in which the font, colours and images infer this to the audience.

Firstly, we can establish it’s a Thriller because of the font. As you can see the its not similar to that of a romance/comedy that will usually use bright or pastel colours, the font of these films may also be more artistic and imaginative. They have you a bold slanted font, its plain and simple this could mean that the film has something dark behind it, mystery and suspense, it can not be taking as ’happy’ The use of red in the title is also a connotation of danger and is most commonly associated with blood and death. This co-insides with the use of the black background, which also means death, sadness and misery.

We then look at the images that they have used. The first thing that I noticed was the camera, again its black which conotates death and misery, the use of the camera here also shows to the audience that it could be a controlling idea. There is a significance to it. You then notice the eyes of the man, he isn’t looking happy or excited but instead he looks inquisitive like he is questioning what he has seen through his camera. We can then make out that the women below has something to do with what he has just seen through his camera.

The last hint that the film is a Thriller is the slogan of the film. They have written in the middle of the two photo’s ‘It only takes one whiteness to ruin the perfect crime’. This indicates that there will be panic in the film which will be centred around how the whiteness deals with what they see and how the protagonists go about dealing with the dilemma.

The second film that I have chosen to look at is ‘The secret Window’, directed by David Koepp in 2004. It focuses around a writer (Johnny Depp) who is accused for plagiarism by a strange man, who then starts haunting him for justice.

Firstly I looked at the text used. The font used again is plain, simple and has used Caps. It infers something sinister and there is nothing to it, it leaves you wondering and questioning. Both the main Actors name and the Title of the film have been written in red. This is very important because of the connotations that the colour holds. We now expect to see blood, injury and violence during the film, at the present time we do not no if the antagonist on the front is the victim or the killer but we no that there will be violence surrounding him.

The tone of the poster is also very dark. it’s a very dark poster with no light, the background is black, again this is a connotation of death. The ambience the poster wants to create is danger, death and suspense. All of this indicates to a Psychological/Thriller.

The Imagery also supports this. They use a close up of the face of the main antagonist. This shows that he is the main character and the story line is based around him. He is not smiling or showing any emotion that shows that the story is based around good circumstances. Instead he is frowning and looking away from the camera, which shows he could be questioning which points to psychological. There is also the shadow of a window striking his face, this could be used as a controlling idea in the film, it keeps the audience engaged and has a significance in the plot. The window could also infer something that he can see, or can see him. Maybe someone is spying on him through the window?

The last film that I decided to look at was Unbreakable, directed by M. Night Shyamalan. A suspense thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a man who learns something extraordinary about himself after a devastating accident.

This poster differs to the other film posters that I have looked at. It although is a thriller portrays itself in a different way. The first thing noticed Is the font colouring. Instead of using reds and blacks which connotate death, danger and blood it uses white which is the complete opposite. White can suggest insanity or innocence, which could infer that perhaps that the antagonist is the victim of something. Similary the poster uses a very casual font, this also indicates that the plot is supposed to be part of a something that happens everyday normally. What happens could happen to anyone.

The two faces that are shown on the poster have white light shining onto their faces, this could suggest their innocence, where as the blacked out figure in the middle of the two shows the opposite and he may be the person who has caused there pain. The use of the dark backgound around the two characters can also indicate that death, danger surrounds them due to the person in the mist of it all.

Looking at the posters has been a useful part of our research, from it now we can take away our knowledge of film posters and apply it to the design of our own. I have especially looked at the fonts that have been used and in what colours. Also the colours in the poster have also been of interest as they help establish the genre along with the imagery. All of this help to create the correct ambience of the film. Also maybe a slogan to the film.

Programs and Websites we used.

Through the production process we used quite a lot of programs and websites to help us along the way, here is the list of programs and websites, also included are the uses we had of them.

Youtube: We viewed other short films for inspiration and ideas.
Wikipedia: At times we needed information on other films, this gave us all the research we needed.
Pinnacle Editing Software: We used this to edit our production and create the final product to show the audience.
Blogger: We could use old blogs of previous years to see how tasks were approached and tell whether or not it was successful, then decide how we would approach the same tasks.
Paint (Windows Software): We needed to use this software to edit and enhance any picture we needed to upload.
Google (Search Engine): From this we could view anything on the web from blogs to questionnaires for inspiration if we got stuck for what to do next.
Google Images: From this we viewed pictures which would be used for such things as our poster and DVD case and sometimes the pictures gave us ideas of camera shots we could incorporate into our final production.
Windows Movie Maker: At times we had to complete some minor editing outside of school, so we had to use other editing software.

Naming our production.

Although it may sound easy, naming our production was most probably the hardest task we faced when tackling our production. Many names were thrown out after we felt it did not tell enough, or told too much, of the story our film would hold.
Here are just some of our initial name ideas:
Deception
Taken
Memories
Acquisition
The Lost
The Missing
Missing
Trapped
Entrapment
Psycho
Forsaken
Unforgotten
The Hunted
Alone
Watching

That is just the list of names that we considered, many more names were read out which were immediately discarded for a variety of reasons.

In the end we opted for the title name 'Acquisition' since we felt it gave away a slight hint of what the film would hold, but not too much since there are a great many ways the title could be considered.

DVD Case

For our production Ancillary task we had to take it upon ourselves to design a poster for our production, to advertise and raise awareness of our film, but, to take it the extra step we decided to design a DVD case which our film would be displayed and sold in to our audience. The poster and DVD case are highly important since it is the first thing the audience will see before viewing our film, and initial thoughts are everything. From the audiences initial thoughts they will decide whether the film looks good and is it their type of film, which then decides whether or not they will view the film at all.

Poster:

DVD:

Changes over the months

Throughout the process of making this film"Aquisition" there have been a vast majority of changes when refurring to our narrative. As you can see in our intial ideas for our plot we set the kidnapping on the beach, we then decided that a girl wouldn't walk all the way to the beach just to walk the dog. This is when we decided to set the walk in a near by forest. Following this we were also planning to get the dog to bark when our protagonist falls to the floor. However during the shooting process we decided to do a point of view shot from our protagonist of the dog slowly walking towards her body, we thought this is a more logical reaction of the dog we were using, and created a more realistic vibe. Saying this though we have stuck to our orignal idea, for the majority of the story. As we searched for the correct soundtracks for our film we disovered the problems that come with it, like music not matching up to the images or the smoothness in the change of soundtracks. However saying this we did not change our soundtrack once it was chosen as we feel they match up correctly. Overall I feel we planned out film well enough to not need to make many changes whilst still doing so when it was necessary.

Costumes We Used.

In our production we based a  lot of our efforts on deciding which costumes would best suit our protagonist and our antagonist and give the strongest effect on how our audience views our characters. The costume worn by any actor defines them to the audience, if a man is wearing a long dark coat and a hat to hide his face he will be seen as mysterious and therefore potentially dangerous. If a woman is wearing torn clothing which hangs loosley, the audience may feel pity towards her.

Here is our Antagonist in his costume:

Here is our Protagonist in his costume:

Psychographics and Advertisers social grades

Psychographics-

Belongers: Savers, focused on the future, well known as “nest-builders”, stay at homers. They like to save their money.

Emulators: The young, generally between 13 and 15 years old. They lack in self-confidence and are often confused and vulnerable. Advertisers prey on their insecurities offering them role models, hero’s and reassurance of group acceptance.

Emulator-Achievers: Materialists, obsessed with looking rich but don’t actually posses much money. They enjoy designer labels and the finer things in life.

Societially-conscious: Pride themselves on personal rather than professional or financial fulfilment. Their sceptical of advertisings and often referred to as “Greying hippies”.

Need-Directed: Mainly concerned with surviving and not the luxuries, they earn minimum wage or are on benefits.

Advertiser’s social grades     

A.      Upper middle – Higher managerial, professional and administrative (directors etc.)

B.      Middle – Intermediate managerial, Professional and Administrative (teachers, police etc.)

C1. Lower middle – Supervisory, Clerical, Junior Managerial, Professional Administrative            (supervisor at Tesco’s etc.)

C2. Skilled working class – Lower management (Labour/plumbers etc.)

D.      Working Class excl skilled – Semi and unskilled (Shop workers, brick carriers etc.)

E.       Lowest Level of Subsistence – State Pensioner, Widows without another person to support them. Casual or lowest grade worker. (Part-time workers, students, non-workers etc.)

Above are psychographics and social grades used to appropriate the certificates of films. As our short film falls under the genre of psychological thriller we must consider our target audience wisely.

Following the psychographics system we are aiming our short film to represent the “Emulator-Achievers” group. We have chosen this groups as although they may not have large amounts of money they pride themselves on the luxuries suggesting that they would have computers and laptops that were able to access short films easily. In contrast, the “Belongers” are people who don’t go out and socialise and would not be willing to pay to buy short films as they like to save their money. The “Emulators” mostly consist of between the ages of 13-15 years old, now as we are planning to rate our short film as a 15 certificate the majority of emulators are ruled out. “Societially-Conscious” are less likely to watch a psychological Thriller as they are often described as “Greying hippies” who like to focus on the positive and would chose to watch a comedy instead. The “Need-Directed” are generally of the minimum wage and would not necessarily have the money for a computer or to buy DVD’s however the age range of the Need-Directed group, is predominately early 20’s to mid 30’s, we consider the age range of the early 20’to be our focus audience for our short film, making the Need-Directed a close second on our psychographics chart.

Following the Advertiser’s social grades we aim our short film to fall under the hybrid of “Middle” and “Lowest level of Subsistence” This is because the Middle section have the intellectual knowledge to appreciate the serious situations explored in our short film, yet they don’t see themselves as “above” them. Lowest level of subsistence consist of a lot of students who are the model age range of 18 to 21 generally, and would be interested in the creepy, guessing game our film holds. Students also spend a lot of time on computers looking at sites such as YouTube, viewing videos and films. The other groups in the social grades would not have the time to sit down and search for short films online and would look for mainstream feature length films appose to short films.

Overall we are aiming our short film at 18 to 25 years olds who are either students or has a job that allows them some spare time to sit and search for short films.

Credits & Soundtrack

Our first attempt at creating the credits for our film didn’t go too well, it made the production look amateur because the opening credits were too brief and also the closing credits looked very unprofessional. After receiving some advice off our teacher and several other students our credits have been added to the film and they have given it a very authentic feel, the font suits the genre of the film and the credits shift around the screen creating a sense of mystery.

The soundtrack to our film was non-existent until close to the deadline as it is very hard to find music that is copyright free, we were then informed of freeplaymusic.com, which allows you to download music for free. From this site we managed to find several suitable soundtracks for separate parts of our thriller, fast paced music to create tension and fear for when our main antagonist is on screen, slower, but still tense soundtracks when anxiety is being created. Then more upbeat music for the parts where all seems well with the protagonist.

Research into Credits

We thought it would be helpful to explore the correct terminological names that are used in the opening credits and end credits or short films. We felt that this would be helpful as we have little knowledge of how short films show the names of the cast and in what order they appear. I decided to look again at ‘About a Girl’, directed by Brian Percival. The list of correct terminology really helped, and will be used as a template in writing our credits. Below is written in order of appearance in there credits.

Cast...

Writer...

Director...

Producer...

Director of Photography...

Editor...

It then goes on to mention the crew, which includes;

Produced by...

Janey de Nordwall
.... producer

Rebecca Wright
.... line producer


Cinematography by
Geoff Boyle


Casting by
David Shaw


Visual Effects by
Giles Livesey
.... digital film colorist

Camera and Electrical Department
Daniel Gadd
.... clapper loader

Daniel Lightening
.... focus puller


Other crew

Helen Bingham
.... production executive
Gus Crotty
.... location assistant

What film company would distribute your short film?

The company we feel should distribute our film is 20th Century Fox because the company has made films which are very similar, such as Independence Day, this film is very fast paced and action based, which reflects our psychological/thriller genre very well, although there's less explosions our film has a tense feel to it throughout. The film company, which also made the films Avatar and Predator, is a good candidate because they are able to raise awareness of our film can target a wide audience.
The funding is there to create the rest of the film and to advertise, it also allows for the film to be shown on a wide scale because 20th Century Fox is such a well-known company so cinemas and film festivals would show the short film. The Home Alone films, all created by 20th Century Fox involve attempted kidnapping, which our film also includes, although the kidnap is successful.

S.W.O.T

Strengths

Our idea is close to our age group and older. A large target audience.
Very close to thriller/psychological genre.
Very popular genre.
Strong controlling idea.
More people are becoming aware of short films.
Characters are male and female, so shorts film can appeal to both.

Weaknesses

Not many people are willing to pay for a short film.
Many people may not attend film festivals to view our short film.
People may feel that short films are pointless.

Opportunities

Film 4 offers programmes to young film makers.
It can be shown at various film festivals. E.g. Film London
As we live in a post modern society, people have access to large amounts of technology. Such as you tube.
Being able to travel due to people being able to drive, we can film at various locations.


Threats

Other large films coming out at the same time
Standing out from the thousand of other competing short films.
Being able to show our film at Festivals
Getting screen time with Film 4.
With the recession people may not be able to afford to travel to the Festival or buy our short.

Focus Group

Focus Group

As part of our research we have decided to carry out a focus group. A focus group takes a variety or people and takes the structure of a group interview. The purpose of us carrying out this research is to find out what our target audience feels about the ideas that we have currently constructed about our short film. We will use the results to help us gain the best global reach and with the desired affect to have people enjoy and buy our short film. We decided on this type of research as we found that is has many advantages, and eliminates some of the disadvantages of our questionnaire.

Below is a table of the Advantages and Disadvantages of using a focus group. We felt that the strengths outweigh the disadvantages and make it a reliable source of research.

Choice of editing software

As a group we reviewed our idea of our short and felt that it demands a high level of editing software.

During our AS course we were luckily enough to be able to use pinnacle in our production. This meant that we already had experience and knowledge of the software, and secondly we had an advantage in editing our production this year.


We want our film this year to be edited with the upmost professionalism, and we feel that using pinnacle will advocate this. We want our film to have clear crisp shots, clean transitions and quality editing techniques that we initially plan of using. For example, the use of blurring images, and the playing with speed and time to come across as professional not amateur.


We want the editing to reflect the hard work that we have all contributed to the film. That of the director, editor and other various roles in our production. We hope that the audience appreciate the hard work and effort that we put into the editing, and enjoy our short production that we hope is at good quality in audience viewing.

The only obstacle we have with using the computer software is that we have to convert the footage on the camera from VCR format to DV format so we are able to edit our footage using Pinnacle. This is easily over come as we can use a converter in which the camera sits on top of that is then connected to the PC and does it for us. It is very helpful.

Editing Diary

Upon finishing our filming, we had the task of tackling the editing needed to slot our shots together and add effects to give the best possible effect to our audience.
Through many hours contemplating what shots should be in which order we decided what we wanted and how we wanted our production to go.

Once the film had been pieced together we also had to add particular effects to make sure the film was displayed in a way where every shot made perfect sense.
At points we had to be very creative since the shots on their own often looked very amature, but with the editing combined they became far more advanced. An example of this would be the point of view shot where our protagonist is feeling the effects of the drugs the antagonist placed in her pill pot and her sight becomes blurred.

We also played around with the idea of increasing and decreasing the speed of certain shots because we were not sure they looked realistic enough or dramatic enough at their original pace. Shots we considered slowing down were the shots where our protagonist passes out, for a more dramatic effect. Another shot we were thinking about slowing down was the final shot where the bag is placed over the protagonist's head, again for a more dramatised effect.
Shots we considered speeding up were when our protagonist falls from the effects of the drugs, this is because we were unsure if the original speed of the shot was truely enough for someone falling over.

In the end we discarded the ideas for any of our shots being changed in terms of speed because we decided the original speeds added realism, which in the end is one of the main features of a thriller because the more real it seems the more scared the audience can be.

Another idea we had was to use a rewinded shot in the credits. We thought about using a screwed up photo in the credits but as the credits appear the paper would be unfolded to its original condition. This would be done by filming the paper being screwed up and then using a rewind effect during the editing. But, after further consideration we were afraid the shot would look highly amature if it was not done perfectly and was too much of a risk.

Once we had laid out all of our editing ideas the actual editing of the production went very smoothly, we encountered no issues with our choice of effects and our shots seemed to slot together perfectly once the editing was in place.

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Upon further inspection one problem we came across when editing was that one of the shots showed a reflection of the cameraman in the mirror, we managed to find a way to crop the image so that he couldn’t be seen, but not so much that the shot looked pixelated or the characters looked larger than normal.

Most of the editing was done on two occasions as we had all the footage we needed, other final touches such as music, credits and fades were added once all the shots were in order and had been trimmed down so continuity was kept intact. One shot has been made blurry so the concept of the protagonist being drugged is shown, the camera vaguely shows the dog walking over to her and then her kidnappers feet walking towards her.

Weather issues

During our filming process we had to keep to a tight schedule, since a small yet vital proportion of our film was shot outside and the weather at the time had been, at best, unreliable. On the day of our filming we were blessed with a darkly clouded sky with the sun just shining though, which made for a good setting since we could film our protagonist walking in the sunlight, which would increase the sense of innocence about her. And in other shot we could film our Point of View shots from the shade, which helps to show the mysterious and dark thoughts which would be running through our antagonists mind.

Since we managed to complete the outdoor filming in one day it made it easier to maintain the shots and continuity. But, towards the end of editing we felt that certain parts could be improved and/or expanded which worried us since the weather had since changed and frost was starting to set in, shortly followed by snow.

Luckily we managed to use the shots in a slightly different manner which made them work better than we had initially planned, which also meant we did not have to risk ruining the continuity of our production by filming more outdoor shots in different conditions which we would have to try and hide. This would also have put the quality of shots at risk since they may have to be filmed differently and may not be as effective.

Evaluation of Day 3 filming

Day 3 of filming was the scenes at Justine’s house in the dark room, when we arrived we had to clear out her outhouse and stick newspaper over the window. We then lay newspaper over the floor and placed photos on the walls; all this was to create the correct tone of mise en scene. We were now ready to start shooting, the first shot was a hand held close up, moving over the photos on the wall, and this shows the audience all the girls that, have been, are being or is going to be kidnapped. We shot this 3 times, as we wanted to get the shot perfect, the shot was a point of view shot from our psycho. We then moved on to shooting our psycho cutting up photos of his next victim, this is a close up of his hands and photos, this caused us trouble as we did not possess the correct type of scissors, so we had to angle the camera in a way that did not show the entire pair of scissors.
The following shot was of our psycho carrying our protagonist into the room and placing her in the corner on a previous kidnapped girl. The problems with this shot was that we had to make the placing of our protagonist look realistic without hurting our actor, every time we attempted to place her down, we either banged her head on the wall or dumped her down on the other girl in a ruff manner which would cause the kidnapped girl to flinch. We did manger to get a successful shot in the end but it was clearly the toughest shot of the day.
When filming the scene where he carries her in we demonstrated a match on action shot as well as numerous point of view shots to try and create an eerie realism feel. As we were shooting inside on day 3 we did not have to consider the weather to such extent, however we were lucky that it was a gloomy day, as this abled us to show the window within one of our shots without it being too bright all this contributed to the mise en scene of our production and helped us set the tone.
If given the opportunity to re-shoot day 3, we would have organised our equipment better and would gather more photo’s to stick up as we had a limited supply. Overall the days shooting were a success and we have retrieved a wide variety of professional styled shots/scenes. We will now start editing our shots together to create our short film.

Evaluation of Filming (Day 2)

Our second day of filming started with a point of view shot of the main antagonist running across the road to the girls’ house. Luckily the weather was very similar to the day before so we continued to film the rest of the outdoor shots, including the scene where the girl is put into the boot of a car. We filmed the antagonist getting into the car and pulling away from several angles and distances so we have a variety of shots to choose from.

We also had to film continuity shots of Francesca taking her pill and making a cup of tea. Before this the antagonist was filmed changing her pills and stealing her car keys. All of these shots had to be filmed a number of times because the actions were hard to do smoothly on camera. One shot which we are very pleased with is the one of Francesca brushing her hair in the mirror, she moves over to place the hairbrush on the side and her kidnapper can be seen in the reflection. A continuity shot from in front of Francesca shows her turning round and the antagonist is gone.

One problem that we faced was that in one of the mirrors, the cameraman could be seen in the corner. We didn’t realise this until we began editing and thought we would have to re-shoot. In the end we found a solution, to crop the clip so one edge was slightly cut out. This could have made the screen pixelate or made actors and objects seem bigger than normal, but because the error was only a small one, it looks no different to normal.

On the whole the days filming went really well, we got more shots than we needed and ended up with over half an hour of footage to work with, so scenes can be added and deleted if needs be. Everyone came up with a few ideas to film at different angles and to create whole new scenes altogether.

Evaluation of First day of Filming

To our filming we had a tense start because we had forgotten to ask permission to use Toms neighbour’s dog, fortunately we were able to use Bailey in the short film. We had decided it was best to stick with the story board and film all shots in the same place on the same day. This included all of the exterior shots of Francesca walking the dog, and entering and exiting her house. This included Long shots, mid shots, low and high angle shots. We also had to include all shots using the dog as we only had the day to use him.

When shooting outside the weather was also permitting, it suited the ambience that we wanted to create showing Francesca to be innocent and venerable with a happy life. When leaving the house we used match on action shots, this completes the movement and action. We used various close ups and extreme close ups of little movements such as putting the lead on the dog, hanging her coat up and picking up keys. These shots help crate isolation and danger. Over all the shooting went very successfully as we got executive shots from different angles and distances.

When shooting the exterior with Bailey, we had to shoot parts numerous times as we couldn’t get bailey to look in the right direction. It was defiantly as challenge shooting with a dog as they are unpredictable. However as we were so thorough we felt that we had got a lot of footage that we can work with.

A challenging shot we had to film was of the point of view shot from inside Francesca’s house, we had a very interesting idea that we wanted to be prefect. Our idea was to have Tom falling over with a point of view shot and then Bailey approaching the camera. We tried this numerous times but we had problems that Bailey wouldn’t go to the camera. Francesca then had the idea that if we throw a biscuit over to tom as he is falling it would get Bailey to move. This still had to be carried out a few times because the biscuit wouldn’t go to the right place therefore then Bailey wouldn’t be in the right place either.

Over all, we had a very successful day. We had shot numerous shots, therefore eliminating future re-shooting. This gave us various locations, angles and shots. We worked very as a team every one contributed ideas, we followed all through again to give us more footage. We felt that the setting that we had used helped to deliver us some really aesthetically pleasing shots, exteriorly and internally. With the extra shooting we feel that we have got some really good shots that we can include. The only thing that we feel we could have improved is the organisation. If it had been so that we were unable to use Bailey due to permission we would have been in trouble and the shooting schedule would have gone down the drain, putting us behind.

Shooting Schedule

Here is our Shooting schedule, we filmed on 3 separate days to obtain all the footage we needed. We are pleased with the amount of filming we did, but a couple of mistakes were made, a reflection of the cameraman could be seen in one of the shots so it had to be cropped and a couple of other shots looked amateur, but because we got over half an hour of filming done we had so much we didn’t need to put these shots in. The order in which we filmed things made shooting confusing at times, we were unsure if we’d filmed everything we wanted. The reason we did this is because the scenes that involved the dog had to be done on the first day of filming because that was the only day we could use the dog. Our main actor, Francesca, was very busy so we had to fit the shooting schedule around her, but because we came together as a group and organised everything very efficiently, we filmed all we needed early on, allowing us to edit straight away.

Final Storyboard

This is our final storyboard, which shows most of the shots in detail. A few shots were added in whilst we were filming because the group came up with ideas on the day.

The film opens with various shots of the main antagonist chopping up images of a girl and scribbling on a picture. This is shown as a montage along with some of the opening credits and title of the film. The lighting here is very low key and the music creates an ominous tone.





After this there are several continuity shots of the main protagonist and her dog going out for a walk, again merged with opening credits. The lighting and music changes to contrast the life of the antagonist and show how luxurious the girls’ life is. One shot we added in whilst we were filming was a point of view shot from the antagonist running towards the girls’ house, this informs the viewer of his intentions to get into her house.





He then changes the girls’ pills and steals her car key, which comes into play later in the film. As the girl comes back home she makes a cup of tea and goes to her bedroom to take her pill, there is then a shot of her in the mirror brushing her hair, when she puts the brush down we see the man in the reflection standing in the corner. There is then another continuity shot of her turning round to find out that there is no one there. She goes downstairs to drink her tea and looks a bit queasy, a point of view shot of her falling down and a blur which was added whilst editing shows that the pill has obviously worked. The dog then walks over to her as she falls unconscious, a fade in is used to show her waking up.





As the camera fades back in we can see the man’s feet, walking towards the girl. After this there is rapid editing of the girl being thrown into the boot of a car and the man speeding away in it. Fast paced music will be used here to compliment the tension and excitement. The girl then wakes up in a small dark room next to another girl who has been kidnapped and a bag is put over her head. Point of view shots are used to show the bag being put and afterwards to show the man looking at the same picture he was at the beginning to scribble off the face of the girl who he has kidnapped. He then circles another girl’s face and storms out of the room slamming the door behind him, which then cuts to the closing credits, along with fast paced music again.

Questionaire results

What we found from the Questionnaire

I found a lot of useful information by carrying out the Questionnaire. We asked a variety of questions that we felt would help us in making our short film, it also gave us an insight to the type of short films and what genre people like to watch.

Surprisingly many students had seen short films outside school, however most students had remembered seeing the Pixar Animations before the showing of a main feature film. This also indicates they would not pay just to see a short film. It is just an added extra. The Majority had also indicated that they had viewed the short films on YouTube.

We asked an open Question as to what genre people would chose to watch. Surreal and Comedy was the most answered. However we are unable to create a comedy as we feel it would be to ‘6th form’ video, and were none of us are comedians it would not be funny. Secondly the cameras are not good at picking up sound therefore the dialogue would not be clear.

A lot of people who had not seen a short film said they would be interested in seeing one, whilst those who had already seen short films said they would happily watch another one.
Fortunately, when I directly asked what genre/sub-genre people would enjoy watching many said psychological/thriller which is the genre we intend to make.

Unfortunately, many said that they would not buy a short film. This is a dilemma because they then don’t see short films as a real film and a waste of money. It would also be a shame to spend all the money producing the film and then not get any of the money back. Furthermore not many of them went to festivals.

The Questionnaire proved to be an effective research method. It enabled me to question a number of people and gather quantitative data that is easily presented and compared. It was practical as it was cost effective and gave a large group of people.

However, the Questionnaire only allowed us to ask mostly closed questions which meant that our data was quantitative and not qualitative. Meaning the participants could not elaborate on their answers. Also those who answer the question may not have understood the question and then answered just to avoid embarrassment.

Planning Diary

1. The initial first couple of days were solely us as a group sitting round a table discussing different possible idea’s for our short film. We came to the conclusion of doing the hybrid genre of a psychological thriller very quickly as all of our initial idea’s fell into to this category. As the lessons went on, we slowly came to and agreed on an idea, which we then storyboarded.

2. The next step in our project was one of research and blogging, the entire group has contributed numerous amounts of blog posts and have done their fair share of research, to help improve our knowledge of the genre of a short film. Our posts included the questions: What is a short film? What are the codes and conventions of a short film? What are the codes and conventions of a psychological thriller? Etc... Other posts were of our previous blogs from year 12 and several textual analyses of other short films, the short films we decided to analyse are “About a Girl” “Doodlebug” and “Doll House”.

3. The following task was the actual filming; we went to several different locations hunting out the appropriate setting for our film. In the end we situated at Shenfield Park as we decided this was a realistic setting that would fit our story. Other locations were Tom’s sister’s bedroom and a small dark out house in Justine’s garden. When arriving at the outhouse we had to completely re-arrange the room as there were DVD’s and a sofa in there. We then covered the floor and window in newspaper to darken the room, we stuck photos of our characters up on the wall and then we were finally ready to shoot. All the shooting went well and we achieved all the shoots we wanted. This will be described in more detail in our filming diary.

Title sequence - Initial Idea

We have used Seven, Directed by David Fincher 1995 to influence our title sequence. In seven they use a slanted font that has a crackling effect on the screen, the use of this text infers the difference in genre as if it were to be a chick flick for example. The slant in the text and non-diegetic sound that accompanies each credit establishes this . This is accompanied by various shots of a man cutting out random clippings and putting them into what looks like a diary of some sort. They use close up shots of his hands, the diary, scissors, and torture equipment. All of which are connotations of a thriller/psychological movie.

We want to use this type of opening sequence in our short film, because we feel that in our last year’s production our title sequence did not have that much professionalism to it. We feel that this is a more advanced and better suited opening sequence than what we tried before. This will also establish the mood and feelings that we want to straight away portray, we want the audience to now that something dark and mysterious is about to happen, with the use of iconography, text, cinematography.

To open we will use shots of photo cutting on the wall, and the psycho cutting out random clippings and scribbling out faces to pictures. We will use extreme close up shots and close up shots. We think that using rapid editing will fasten the pace and hopefully make the audience anxious. The credits will also appear in a jiggered font flashing on the screen, hopefully to show distress and insanity. Credits will be in white to again show insanity or innocence.

Initial idea’s for sound

As our idea develops and grows, the group has started to discuss how we are going to use sound to add to our short film. As our film is a psychological thriller we understand that our music and sound must stick to the conventions of other short films similar to ours, as we do not want to confuse our audience. This is why we have decided not to go for the creepy contrapuntal soundtrack that plays happy music whilst someone is being drugged as we do not want to confuse our audience and we want to keep a serious tone throughout. Although we have not chosen a specific soundtrack yet we have decided that the music will be a slow, chilling track that will quietly influence the audience into uncertainty. As well as this we have chosen to use silences, where not even diegetic sound will be heard as we believe this brings an eerie un-realisation to the story. There is a scene where we get a low angle point of view shot from the girl lying on the floor looking at the psycho walking towards her, whilst this is happening we will have the pleonastic sound of the man’s footsteps walking towards her and then fading out as her eyes close and the camera fades to black. A non-diegetic soundtrack will then start up as we see the boot of the car being closed with the camera left inside facing out to represent the girl being trapped inside. The soundtrack will then run until the our psycho appears again in the same corner where we first saw him, he will be looking down cutting up another photo, where he’ll say one line of dialogue which will end the film. The credits will then appear and the same non-diegetic soundtrack will start up again.

Musical Influence: Secret Window

To make our short we needed to plan certain parts. A key part of any film is to decide on the non digetic sound that will accompany the short. As a group we looked at different films that are similar to our own in the same genre as a Psychological/Thriller to give us ideas on how they used music to create the atmosphere in the film. We also needed to look at if the music was suitable for the genre. A film that we thought used the music well in building suspense and telling the story was ‘Secret Window‘, directed by David Koepp.

In the clip I have found the non-digetic sound that has been used to accompany the film and has been successful in adding emotion to the scene. As the young women is moving up the stairs there are sounds ambient, these help in conjuring the mood, they are slow and quite which indicates that she is about to come across something which will then put the audience on edge. This is accompanied by shots of rooms which have been destroyed, but the music tells us that this isn’t the climax of the scene. As she moves then through the house the score quickens the pace as she may be moving closer to the protagonist or is entering danger. The music correlates to the emotion of the character and helps portraying this to the audience.

There is added pleonastic sound as the camera zooms in on markings on the tables, walls and windows over the musical score. This indicates there importance and shows to the audience where the character is looking, it also emphasizes the danger that she is in as the create drama and suspense.

This is then followed by musical stings as the camera pans around her. The musical stings are used to make the audience feel scared, at this point the audience will no that she is now in danger, the audience should be able to feel for the character and be wanting her to move out of the room. There is then the digetic sound of her gasping which shows her surprise, and terror as she see’s the protagonist. This is accompanied by the score which by now has created a fast pace, the music is loud and powerful which show her suspense and shock, it help sets the atmosphere and tells the audience how far away she is from whatever danger she is in.

The music in the film has been used really well to create tension and suspense through the scene. It has influenced our choice in music as we can now look at this and see how they have used a mixture of musical stings, digetic sound, the music score and non digetic sound to create the intended atmosphere.

Risk Assessment

Below is a table assessing the potential risks we could encounter whilst filming our production, and how to combat these risks to minimise the potential of any of them happening.

Questionnaire

We have decided to use a questionnaire as we feel that it would be an effective type of research. By carrying it out we were able to gather large amounts of data, its cheap and is not time consuming. We will gather quantitative data that we will present in graphs, this will enable to study results easily.


1. Do you watch short films outside of school?

2. Where have you seen these films? Please Circle.
You Tube/Myspace Tv DVD/Blue Ray
Cinema/Festival Other

3. What genre/ sub-genre was it part of ?

4. Did you enjoy it?

5. Would you watch another short Film?

6. If you had not seen a short film would you want to see one?

7. Do you think short films are an effective type of film?

8. What genre would you be interested in seeing?

Horror Thriller/Psychological Mystery Adventure
Comedy Romance Drama Animation
9. Do you feel they portray ‘real life’?


10. Would you ever buy a short film?

Controlling Ideas in our Short Film

A controlling idea makes the viewer ask the question why is that there? What is the relevance? It has meaning to the production, where the viewer’s curiosity is raised. Although the viewer may not necessarily notice the controlling idea it will psychologically have an effect in their mind. A controlling idea can be anything that has importance and is shown continually, it is something that never changes.
In our Short film we have two controlling ideas.

The first we have is the Dog. We use the dog from the very beginning opening scene were the lead is being put on, through to where we see Francesca collapse. Here Bailey plays a very important role; dogs understand when something is wrong. We used this to our advantage as we shot Francesca falling and then Bailey coming to investigate. This indicates something is wrong and shows the bond between her and Bailey. To this point the only people that we see are Francesca and Bailey, this indicated that there is an importance in having the dog as a character in the scene were the trouble starts.

The other controlling idea in the short film is Francesca who plays the young troubled girl. She is in the majority of shots. This infers her importance in the film. We introduce her at the very beginning this also indicates that she is going to have an important role and the story line will revolve around her.

Use of Cinematography

We have considered the cinematography for our short film very carefully. Through it we want to reflect the normal life of the girl but also be able to use the cinematography to infer that unfortunate events are about to follow. Secondly, the cinematography should reflect the genre that we have selected that is a Thriller/Psychological. It should create a dark ambience which will create the desired mood that we want to portray.

We will use Mid shots to show the young girl, this is an average shot that just portrays the girl as normal as she goes about her normal day routine. However to create that isolation that we want and a sense of danger we will use long shots or her walking the dog. This will enable the audience psychologically note that she is venerable. There will also be a range of over the shoulder shots and shot reverse shots as she interacts with different parts of the story line, for example: the dog; putting the lead on the dog; making tea. This makes the filming more interesting and keeps the viewer interested and keeps to the pace of the film.

Our aim is to be as creative as possible with our filming. We want every shot to be considered carefully to give the desired effect. Although when we come to filming various shots may be added or changed we have initial ideas.

When we see the main protagonist outside her house we want to use a point of view shot using a hand hold camera, this will show that she is being watched. The jiggered movements of the camera will infer the danger and hopefully the audience will then feel for the character wanting her too look directly at the bushes. Whilst we shoot the bathroom scene where she notices the man in the mirror we will use rapid editing. This will show the danger and set the mood, creating suspense. We will also use a variety of close ups and extreme close ups when we want the audience to feel like they are ‘in the film’ and try to build a connection with the characters. This will be mostly used around the protagonist as we don’t want to show his face straight up at first just what he is up to, and then in the opening credits. They will then be used to show the emotion on the girls face.

Using a Tri-pod will allow us create a variety of movements. We will tilt the camera up and down, tilting the camera up will create intimidation, power, triumph and determination. Shots such as Francesca walking into the house with the antagonist inside will show her intimidation. Tiling the camera down will create a High angle shot. This will be used to show vulnerability and danger.

We will pan the camera, which means to go from left to right. This avoids cutting shows the location and follows the route of a character in action.

We will use a cantered angle when Francesca the protagonist has been drugged and falls to the floor. This angles shows that she is drugged or hurt. It will show her confusion and leave her looking venerable which is what we want to create.

We are slightly limited in our choice of camera movements. We do not have access to a track or dolly if we wanted to follow a character down the street, instead we have to try and use hand held as steady as possible. A crane would also be useful in creating Arial shots so that we could establish isolation of the protagonist. One that can be used depending is the zoom/reverse zoom. On the cameras that we have zooming in whilst filming looks tacky and cheap but zooming in before filming has started can be used to show emotion on characters faces and iconography.

Costume Influence

We based our costume for Francesca on Prue Sorenson from the TV drama Bouquet of barbed wire. For Francesca as we said before we wanted to portray an innocent girl by making her character wear more natural coloured clothing. We wanted to show she was a soft, gentle and innocent character. This is similar to the character of Prue Sorenson.

We thought that the hair of Prue was very natural; it shows that her character isn’t interested in her appearance as much as to her personality. We also felt that it also gave an element of innocence as she seems to not followed the trends with hair straighteners and curlers. We thought that this type of hair would go well with Francesca and the character we wanted her to play.

The Clothing of Prue is also very important in creating her character. The clothes she wears are very earthy, delicate and create a sense of vulnerability about her. We can see in the picture of her here she wears a dusty pink cardigan which we can infer means that she is young and delicate. The pearls around her neck could also indicate wealth. We wanted to create the same kind of look with Francesca.

We Costumed Francesca to wear a light grey coat, and denim jeans. This is casual wear to carry out normal day tasks. We feel that we have created the character she plays very well and the costume played a very important role in establishing her character. We were able to make her character look innocent, and pure. This will also help the audience connect with her and see parts of her in themselves.

Iconography

Iconography is one of the most important aspects of any media related production. They are important in establishing the genre and setting, for example the use of blood with be seen and straight away seen as danger and a part of a thriller/horror. Whilst a doctors would have needles and heart machines, this would establish the setting. A heart machine would be inappropriate in the middle of the desert.
In our short film the use of props is extremely important in establishing each location, understanding the characters, and establishing the genre.

In the house of the victim, we will see normal households objects to show she lives here and give it that comfy warm feeling. A main object here is the mug. In this shot a mug is dropped and shatters to show distress, panic and danger. Destruction is also relevant to psychological Thrillers. We also see the main antagonist taking pills, this is the object that causes her fate, but this also infers that she has had some type of mental problem, as pills can be associated with illness or psychological problems. However we the see the girl walking with her pet dog, showing that she just tries to live a normal life carrying out normal everyday chores, the dog here is the reason that she leaves her house in the first place allowing the psycho to enter into her home. A lead here is also needed to control the dog when she is seen taking him for a walk.

From outside the house, there will be an Aston Martin parked. This is important in showing her social class, however this contrasts with the taking of the pills because we do not expect to see a white middle class girl taking pills as it assumes she is unhealthy.

In the psychos lair, props used are newspaper cuttings to cover the window and block the light. The scrappy cuttings and dark colours made the mood dull, dim and psychologically the audience will know that something bad is going to happen. In the room also there are to be pictures hanging from the walls of girls, they are scattered about and cut and parts of the faces of girls are crossed out. This can infer the mental state of the psycho. There is also use of scissors- a potentially dangerous object.