Changing our idea

The thriller idea had changed from the original idea within the first week. We have now come up with a thriller idea which is more suited for an opening sequence of a film. We feel tenstion and mystery can be built up more dramatically during a poker game. The idea is basically a very tense poker game and which there is one woman sitting at the table. The bets rise and rise until it comes to a million dollars worth of cars, drugs etc. The bodyguards at the door look at each other in a smiling type of way, suddenly there are cut ins of tracking shots of very shiny and expensive looking shoes going through a street. As the suspense gets higher and higher within the room, the door bursts open and a gun is fired to a younger looking man sitting at the bar. There is then a blackout and the movie name "Ace" in blocks capitals splattered with blood. We will incorporate the title sequence into this by adding then to the side of each person in the poker game, then if needed by the villain feet in the poker game. The suspense will be added by having a slow but sure increase in the price of the bet, ranging from hundreds of pounds the millions.

Shot List

Thses are all of the different types of shots we need to make out thriller the way we story boarded it. Although we tried to stick to this on the day of the shoot it was difficult as we didn’t have some of the actors for the whole day. We also had time to shoot some shots that we had not storyboarded for example shots of eye contact and poker players placing their cards down, this would give the whole sequence a more real feel to it.

-Birds Eye shot of when Luke gets shot and everyone scattering.
-Low angle shot of two cards being peeked at.
-Close up of something on table then tilt up to a player with Luke in the background not in focus.
-Extreme close up of Niki’s eyes.
-Tracking shot around the table, with everyone putting something in.
-Medium shot of Felix stressed (fixing his tie) then tilts down to close up of him putting in the keys on top of the chips.
-Medium shot of Guy walking in to shoot Luke.
-Tracking shot of Niki entering, tracking round to when she sits down “deal me in boys”
- Close up shots of chips being thrown in and cards being fanned out for opening sequence of title.
-Close ups of everyone’s faces.
-Extreme close ups of everyone’s faces.
-Tracking shot of money being pulled out of his jacket.
-Close-ups of drinks being drunk, cards being dealt, chips being thrown in.
- Cut away shots of drink being poured in glasses.
-Medium shot of Luke pouring drinks.
-Close up focus change shot of cards-bottom right. Then change focus to poker player drinking a drink.
-Close ups of Tym and Min panning to thinks on a table.
-Two shot of Oleg and Seyi talking and looking at the table, as if they are watching Min and Tym battling it out. (To do this we had to turn the characters round the table so they can do their chat, with the brick background.

MY power point about horror movies

Plan Of The Film Sequence

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What is a horror film?

A horror film has three main aspects

Firstly, the movie should be personal to the audience. They use fears that are very common for example a girl being raped. This means that the film is personal to you, you may feel something like this could happen to you as in the movie they too are very normal. I think a scary film would include a young girl like me going about her daily routine when something alarming happen like a murder or rape. As long as the audience could identify with the actors and plot it will alarm them.

Next the film needs an ideological meaning. They are either obvious or hidden but never the less present. For example, in basic horrors an essential idea is that the virgin always survives and the drug taking friend will die. Although, some movies like Scream challenge this with a pre plot type of thing and kill a well known star die within the first few minutes. Towards the end of the movie we also see the community bettering themselves, priest find their faith again and parents become more consoling and understanding. I find that after watching a real life based story it makes me more cautious of my surroundings and perhaps they wish to have this effect on people.

Thirdly, the idea that the film will be able to franchise and make series is crucial to film makers. Horror franchises beyond other genres in term of sequences because of the profit involved. For example, saw one, two, three, four, five and six. It seems that blood and gore never grows tiring for the audience like romantic comedies and documentaries do. Some would say this is because they are just like going on a rollercoaster; you feel a rush and uncontrollably excited at first. But at other times your in suspense or you come to a halt, you feel somehow attached and involved to the movie, responsible in a way to tell them to duck down or run faster. When we get off a rollercoaster we feel energised and super aware like when leaving the cinema or living room from seeing a horror movie.

On wikipedia Horror Films are described as:
Horror films are movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a central villain.

still camera

Composition:

Photography brings a visual language that is universal in understanding. We must then understand its vocabulary which consists of shapes, textures, patterns, lines, colours, shade of light to dark and sharp to blurry images. Just as we must learn to arrange words in a coherent order in order to make sense when we write or speak, so too must we put visual elements together in an organized manner if our photographs are to convey their meaning clearly and vividly.
Composition means arrangement: the orderly putting together of parts to make a unified whole; composition through a personal, intuitive act. However, there are basic principles that govern the way visual elements behave and interact when you combine them inside the four borders of a photograph. Once we have sharpened our vision and grasped these basic ideas of principles, then we will have the potential for making our photographs more exciting and effective than ever before.


The Rule of Thirds
One of the most popular 'rules' in photography is the Rule Of Thirds. It is also popular amongst artists. It works like this:
Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect. I've even made a little diagram for you (fig 1).
As well as using the intersections you can arrange areas into bands occupying a third or place things along the imaginary lines. As you can see it is fairly simple to implement. Good places to put things; third of the way up, third of the way in from the left , you get the idea. Duff places to put things; right in the middle, right at the top, right at the bottom, away in the corner.
Using the Rule of Thirds helps produce nicely balanced easy on the eye pictures. Also, as you have to position things relative to the edges of the frame it helps get rid of ' tiny subject surrounded by vast empty space' syndrome.

One last thing about the Rule of Thirds,once you have got the hang of the Rule of Thirds you will very quickly want to break it. As I said earlier the rules are basically used as guidelines and if you can create a better image by making your own rules then this is very benificial. The Rule of Thirds is structured.

basic camera shots

I uploaded this picture to show a range of camera shots used when making a thriller. Each shot conveys a different characteristic or emotion to the audience. For example, an extreme close shot would show the audience the actors true emotions, but a long shot could be used to show off a persons clothing or body. There are many other more complicated shots used as well; for example a weather shot or a cut in. A weather shot is very important to show the audience the surrounding of the story and could also be used to symbolise the mood of the scene.

photo of photoshop on the computer

This picture is on my blog because it is very important to see how many different applications there are. You can edit your picture to make it seem more spookey, lighter or in a different colour.

This is a picture of a wide lens, as you can see its bases diameter is much smaller then the top. This is to maximise the amount of light being able to go through into the shot to give a certain vibe or depth to a character. The presence of a shaddow and the length of it determines how spookey or playful an object is. For example, when walking home at night scenes are in movies. They commonly have very long shaddows to show no one else is around.

Prelim post production blog

Last Friday we started to edit our tapes in the editing sweet. We got into our groups and logged on to the Final cut Server, this was a new programme to not only new to us but the school too. We went into the programme and checked out all of our footage then accessed the edit proxy (digital copy of the footage) of the original footage to use in our exercise.
Continuity Editing is very important to smooth over the discontinuity of the editing. For example if you cut together two frames the sound would be inconstant and repetitive. By choosing the speed or speech we can force the audience to identify with certain characters. Film language is used so that people understand what is happening on screen for example we commonly started with the mid shot to establish the characters and their relationship. The general order if filming shots are wide shot, mid shop, over the shoulders then close ups.

Logging Shots
We made a file entitled “log bin” for our best shots in each category. We chose the shots that looked the smoothest with no continuity. Also some shots had too much head space or the shots had too much light in them. Luckily none of our shots were out of focus so we did have the choice of using all of them. It took our group a long time to select the takes we wanted to use but I think we selected the right ones.

Organising your shots
Before starting the preliminary task we were given a story board. This consisted of four wide, four over the shoulder and four close ups. The shots were selected to show emotion to the audience and to ensure they understood the story; they were in a simple formation as it was our first time filming.

Shot Order
As our task was set out in shots that we had to stick to, this meant there was a pattern to follow which made this easier for us. It was difficult as our actors did not always hit their point or eliminate continuity so we had to delete many frames. To get shots from the left side to the right we had to hold down the “I” key for in then, hold down the “O” key to cut that particular piece of footage. Once done, we dragged it down onto the editing time line and perfected the sound on it.

Editing in Final Cut
We cut from James’s entering the room to Fiona’s eyes anxiously glancing at him then looking away. By using the ECU on her eyes, all of the audiences focus is drawn to them, rather then whatever was being said.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Last lesson me and three others were put in a group to film a short sequence in the old editing sweet. The location was a great place to film as here was lots of space and natural light. During our time filming we did not have allocated roles like camera crews do, we all had a go at everything. My favorite was being the director and deciding when to say action and cut. We tried to get a wide variety of shots, to do this we attempted to hold up the camera on the tripod, but it proved too difficult for us.
The lighting was very difficult to decide on; we discussed many reasons why we should use different kind of lighting. After much thought towards this, we settled on having a very light room but with hardness to it, as James was the main speaking character he needed to look a certain way. We had a key and a fill light so the shadows were attached to the wall. The lighting was very important because I gave the character a story behind him. The lighting showed that he wasn’t a soft and loveable person. He was a bully. At the time yes, the lighting looked effective but we are yet to go through the tape and start the editing. But at the time, on the screen of the camera it was very effective and did give great long shadows. Adding to the spooky and anxious vibe.
As there was a limited amount of time we were aloud, we had to quickly set up the camera and get it into position for the first shot. To set up the camera we firstly had to ensure the tripod was level, to do this we bubbled it. This means the bubble in the spirit level was within the smaller circle. We checked the frame, made sure there were no equipment in view for example the lights or our shadows. In our group we had written down all of the different shots we needed, we used a large range to ensure the audience understood the two characters relationship. For example, we shot Fiona downwards. This shows she is weak and had a lower status then James. We shot James so he looked like a powerful tall man; he also never sat down and got onto Fiona’s level. The sequence of shots we did were, wide shot, mid shot, close ups (of both), extreme close ups (of both) and over the shoulder shots.
During filming we were very conscious of the 180 degree line. This line is the one you are unable to cross when filming as it confuses the audience to think the characters have switched positions on screen.
On set we used the appropriate terminology to not only make the actors feel more confident in our filming but also to get experience of saying the words and properly understanding when to say them. It made us feel more formal and professional.
In terms of practical film making I think we have learnt very much in a short time. In our group we did not get any help from the supervisor, which made us feel more confident in ourselves.
The story behind our short sequence was that James was pressurizing Fiona into killing someone in an assassination type of way. We decided on this as we wanted to make the frames spooky and as if they could be in real life.
Over all i think our filming was very succesful and everyone lernt alot from this practical way of teaching.

Video Camera Introduction

Last week we learnt how to use a tripod and a Sony camera during a Media lesson. Firstly we were shown how to succesfully attatch the camera onto the tripod, without sratching the lense of the camera. We were then introduced to the pan handle, used to make a moving shot steady and smooth. After we all had a turn, a camera was connected to a television at the front of the class to show us what should be on the screne and at what number. For example, there should always be zero David Brooms when filming. This relates to atrificial light into a shot also know as "gains". The class were then told about the micro phone and how to attach it to the camera. The problems with the camera is that omnidirectional, it picks up noise from every direction.
There are different filters used on the camera to allow the light to balance with the people in the shot. There are four different types useually used:
1 3200k indoor
2 5600k ourdoor with 1/4 Nd
3 5600k outdoor clear
4 5600k outdoor with 1/6 Nd
There are two different types of angle when recording. A wide angle or a standard angle, the difference is that a wide lens lense takes in more ligt which makes the room appear bigger. Exposure is very important as it perfects the smount of light going through the lens. We also need to set the zebra to 70% to begin with.

When setting up a frame we need the cters to get in it and position themselves before recodring to ensure we take into account the rule of thirds. We also need room for two other things, looking space and headspace. Looking space is to see where the actor is looking or what it is looking at so we can make a visual link. Headspace is used to see what is happening behind the actor which may help us to understand what is going on.

To ensure we could hear everything we plugged in a sensitive microphone, which worked very well and picked up a lot of sound. Whilst filming we also had to moniter the battery and power of the camera .

Film Poster

During one lesson of Media we were told about all the different types of photo shots and framing. Firstly Matt explained about the rules of thirds, this simply refers to cutting up the photograph into nine equally sized boxes. The three middle box's are usually where most people put an object within a frame. We learnt that being on a different side of the frame normally reveals different characteristics about the person. If you are on the left side it usually means you are the "good" fighter. Whereas; if you are on the right you are commonly the villain. Where the top two lines cross is called a hot spot. This is where our eyes automatically are drawn to, so the designers must ensure this place is filled with an interesting image or the release date.
When out taking pictures of each other, there was one that particularly caught my eye with potential to be relatively frightening. An overview of James showed that he was being looked down down and weak. In the poster i made, James look as though he had black stains over his jumper and shirt. I changed his top to black from grey to emphasise his darkness. I also highlighted his cheek bones and collar bone to give a glimpse of his unbalanced lifestyle plus, the darkness around his eyes makes us think he hasn't slept decently in a few weeks maybe even living on the streets. He does not at this moment look like a healthy man, showing him as a rebel character. The background of my poster was used to show the trouble one single person can manage, and the corruption of many lives he can single handily cause. The position of James was decided to make it seem as if he is walking away from the crime he committed, regret free. The title "Pyromaniac" was chosen to give the audience the impression this was not the first time he had made a fire or hurt others. Over all, i wanted to create a scary poster to alarm not only children but adults too.