Our film brainstorm (Initial ideas)

Location

Initially, when we thought of a horror film, the stereotypical things than come to mind are isolated, derelict areas as it make the scene feel more suspicious and tense for the audience. We thought of using a car as we think it is more original and isn't something you would typically expect to see in a horror film. We done alot of research of areas where we could film; the first was in Epsom at the top level of a car park which is derelict so we thought that would be a good place to do as there wouldn't be alot of people as it is not really a public area. We then thought of the idea of having a tunnel which we researched again and found a few and we eventually decided on the idea of it being in Leatherhead as we found that this was a quite place and along side it was an alley way which was another significant place and it would follow on with our ideas.

Clothing

The characters that will feature in our film are going to be a young girl and a man. For this reason, we stereotypically thought of dressing the girl in an old fashioned dress or a nightie as it realistically denotes childhood and also a time-worn theme. For the man, we had the idea of black trousers, hoodie, black hat, etc. This is for the reason that it is more suspicious and because his role is negative throughout the opening two minutes we thought that it would be best that he was hidden and all in black as stereotypically this is the visual image that you get of a villain.

Lighting

Considering our film is a horror, we originally thought of filming in the dark. For the reason that we have not got all the props and equipment to provide efficient lighting, we are going to be heavily reliable on street lights and in our situation the car light as well.When thinking of our location, we took into consideration that our choice would have street lights and eventually found an area which fitted our initial ideas as well as providing us with relatively good lighting. Because, our film is a horror, it is not vital that the lighting is of high quality as filming in the dark makes it all the more captivating for the audience and makes it more daunting.The image on the right shows our location which as you go further down has street lights which we will benefit from when filming.

Process of creating storyboards/anamatic

This here was a brief clip showing the production process. This was one of our first sketches of our initial ideas for the film. Throughout the clip, Hollie briefly explains the process at which we done it and guides the views through what she has currently drawn. We thought this would be significant to film as it is clear evidence of us, ourselves, actually participating and understanding what we are doing along the process.

The clip above is another brief explanation of the process. In this clip, I was filming Hollie as she briefely guided us through the final anamatic storyboard which we were later on going to put into a short film clip. Again, we thought this would be important to capture as it shows us working along the process and, as previously said, understanding what we are actually doing. This storyboard had much more detailed drawings as it was our final one which he had to put together into a short clip, which was our anamatic.

Storyboard 4

Storyboard 3

Film institutions

20th Century Fox

This is a film corporation  which is one of the 6 major american film studios. It was founded in 1935 and has become one of the most recognised film institution in the world. Many of the most successful films have been created by 20th Century Fox including Avatar, Star Wars and the Chronicles of Narnia. The majority of films created by this institution are family/comedy films which include Alvin and the Chipmunks, Doctor Do-little, Night at the Museum and Diary of a Wimpy kid.


Warner Bros.

Warner Bros is another one of the main film studios based in California and New York. Warner Bros is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing. Warner Bros produce and distribute a variety of films in different genres, from comedy, romance, fantasy, adventure, action and horror. Again, some of the most poplar films created by Warner Bros are Harry Potter, Sex and the City, The Hangover, The Dark Night and Slumdog Millionaire. In relation to our genre for our film, some of the most popular films which have been created by Warner Bros are Orphan, Friday the 13th and Sweeney Todd.


Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures also called Universal Studios is one of the six major movie studios. It was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle and it is one of the oldest American movie studios still in continuous production. This institution has won awards for many of the films they have created including Hong Kong, A Beautiful Mind and The Pianist. Alike 20th Century Fox they prefer to create films on the the drama, romance and adventure genres. Again, in relation to our chosen genre, Universal Pictures have created many popular horror films including Drag Me to Hell, Dead Silence and Dragula.


DreamWorks

DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. is an American animation studio based in California that creates animated feature films, television programmes and online virtual worlds.This institution has released a total of 31 feature films, including Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Monsters Vs Aliens and The Croods. Shreck 2 is the sixth all-time highest animated film. The founders of DreamWorks institution are Steven Spielberg, who is one of the most popular and successful film directers of all time, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. This institution is currently distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Location research

For our location, although we are using a car, we decided to go somewhere of-road so it was easier to film rather than get other cars in the shot. The images shown are from mill road in Leatherhead. This is the location where we are going to film our car scene and we chose it to make it more daunting as we are doing a horror film. On Sunday, we went to our location from 4 on wards til it was dark to play around with the camera and film a few things and obviously take pictures of the location. The images of Hollie were also in the same location however were of the road and were down an alley way where we were primarily thinking of  filming a section of possibly the man. Using our Go-Pro, we used the head strap and ran down the alley way to see how it worked and how the sound was. After doing this we will know in the future and when actually filming how to work it and what we are going to do. We thought that this was an extremely good place to film as, previously said, it is off-road and is a quieter area and will not be so difficult to film. Also as shown in the images, there is a bridge which again is significant as it is old and worn out and we believe that in the dark, we will be able to produce a successful horror film. Stereotypically, horror films are often seen to be filmed in quite areas and dark alleyways which make it again more daunting for the audience and captivate them more than usual. 

Progress target setting

In order to complete and evidence all of our research and planning me and Hollie need to do more in-depth research into our genre, location, clothing, sound and as we go along add it to our blogs. To do this we will go and visit our location and play around with the camera and see how things plan out. Also to do with the clothing, we will make a solid plan of what our characters are going to wear then do some research and find out what and how we can do it. Once this is decided, we will need to take singular images of our characters in costume and provide some background information as to why we chose those particular outfits. In addition, with the sound we can obviously do some research to find some gory, daunting sound effects which we can consider adding to our film. Although, I believe that we would need to wait until everything is filmed and until we know what the sound quality was like; if we were going to include this, we could primarily record a voice-over or if we were sure of a particular sound effect then we can prepare it for when we begin the film.

I think that in order to complete and evidence all of our research and planning, I need to ensure that I am keeping up to date with blogging and making sure that I am doing independent research as well as group research; this would be so that I am collecting all the information I need to produce a journey/ build up til the point where our film is all finished

Anamatic

This is our anamatic which is simply our story board edited into an animated film. This was our original idea and although we believe it would be a good and interesting plan, as we are yet to start filming, we are unsure whether this will be the expected result. However, either way, our opening two minutes will be something along the lines of this anamatic. To put this together, we took images of our hard-copy storyboard  and we then used the Adobe Premier Elements software to edit it and put all images together as well as adding sound effects.

Progress Targets

On return we begin the post production stage of our journey and editing begins from the onset - make sure you are video blogging and keeping your page relevant and up to date.  Make sure you have evidenced all the following areas of focus over the break to maximise your marks for research and planning.  The numbers reflect the amount of posts expected, at least.  You are capable of exceptional attainment here - grab it!

  Research

• Genre Research 10

•Soundtrack research (non copyright music) 1/2

•Costume and location research – google earth and pictures you’ve taken. 1/2

•Actors and props photos and interviews 3/5

•Audience Research and Profiling (typical audience member and similar films) 1

•Uploaded YouTube videos of openings – analysed 15/20

•Opening titles analysed in detail – font researched 1

•Analysed Film Openings from from your genre in particular 5/10

•Institution research (Paramount etc) 1

•Certificate research 1

  Planning

•Own film idea brainstorm 1

•Own film treatment 1

•Relevant Online Tutorials and Comment 4/5

•Documenting of influences on production 1

•Shot lists 1

•Consideration  of representation in your film and stereotyping – use theory from G322. 1

•Questionnaire (and feedback) Get some feedback on your initial ideas!

•Diary of filming/editing etc with photos and screen grabs

•Mood board 1

•Script 1

•Practice titles created and uploaded 1

•Storyboard – animatic.1

Storyboard 1

This was one of our first storyboards that we created however this was not our final idea as evident in our actual film. This was a completely different storyline however it helped us to create further storyboards for our final ideas and also how and what to include. The drawings were very sketched as shown and these were done in rough until we fully decided on what we were going to do. Following these storyboard posts will be our final storyboard which was properly drawn out in detail.

Storyboard 2

What software are we using to edit our film?

To edit our opening two minutes, the main software we are going to be using will be Adobe Premier Elements. This software allows us to put all our clips together to arrange them and edit them to fit together and produce a film. Firstly we are able to cut any unwanted clips or anything that doesn't run through the way we want or expect. The software will allow us to use multiple effects such as fade, swipe, etc. We will be able to use them effects between each clip or alternatively to open or close the scene. We will be able to add sound effects in specific places for extra effect or possibly if any sounds were misheard or were too quiet, we would be able to add them as a new soundtrack. I think that this software will allow us to make our opening two minutes more realistic.

I believe that we will be able to produce a more realistic and successful opening by using Adobe Premier Elements rather than a software like movie maker. This software has a wider range of tools to use and as it says in its name, it has premier elements which are alot more successful to use than other software elements. To edit any images that we have we will possibly use photo-shop as it has multiple tools to use which are able to make the image look more realistic and also to cover up any thing that shouldn't be in it.

We have previously used Adobe Premier Elements to edit our first ever filming's which was the task of saying 'What are you doing here?'. We filmed about 5 different clips around different areas of the school, and using the software we put them all together and firstly added some extra sound effects such as footsteps when walking down the corridor. We then used the software again to edit our continuity task which we found ourselves more able to make better edits. We produced a short clip which involved the 3 types of continuity shots. Overall I think that we will be able to achieve and produce a successful opening two minutes.