Day 5 Of Filming

This day was the day we left Deon Hunte a group member to take charge of the establishing shot of the police station. The location of this scene was Edmonton Green, and Deon Hunte gladly worked hard to produce a good shot of the police station. This was a group decision for him to take the shot himself as he would have put a bigger input in the tasks, because it seemed like myself and Lynette were doing a lot for the team. It was also a good idea for Deon to take the shot as he lived close to the police station and knew the area very well.

Day 4 Of Filming

23rd March 2012


Once again we decided to make a video dairy, so that our day to day stages of completing the film is caught by you the 'bloggers'. This way it also shows you what we are up to rather than me telling you.

This day was the last day of filming as a group, we allowed Deon Hunte to be in charge for that day. We shot the scene where Mandy would open the letter that was sent by her attacker, this apart of the film should have audience wondering what is going on. 

Organisation was a key aspect of getting this part of the film done and dusted to the best of our ability. We were organised enough to finish the scene without that much trouble, however we can not go a day without no trouble at all. There were some things that was not prefect about filming on this day but some how we got through it. 

The difficulties we went through:

As we had to use the common room's kitchen area as the kitchen of the girl who was attacked (Jenessa Tawiah). We had to have the setting of the seen as quite as possible but this was seen to be a problem. We had students making noise as it was their independent study time and we had to use the location at the same time they had their study time. I could assure you no studying was going on there, and we had to get the students quite some how. So as a team we asked some of the students nicely to keep the noise down, after asking the main group of students to settle down the other individuals saw how much we needed the location to be quite so they allowed us to shoot the film whiles they were as quite as possible. 

I believe the paragraph above was the main difficulty we went through, this may have been because we were well organised and more alert over things that may go wrong. This is not me trying to be over confident about our filming saying nothing was wrong with it at all, I just believe that we as a team have learnt from our mistakes and we made sure they did not happen again. 

Things that went well  

Another great location for the shot, once again it showed some realism. Lynette was the person who found us the lovely location, she did a real good job of thinking it through. As you may have heard me say, or should I say try to say 'verisimilitude' the location should definitely make the audience believe that the common room kitchen is a normal household kitchen.

Once again I believe the actors and actresses managed to come dressed appropriately. They also followed instructions well, they listened to what we had to say and we guided and directed them without any trouble. I believe gave it their all and completed the task without any complaints, some good constructive comments were made by an actor and we took this on board and changed what was seen to not be useful. That showed me that the teamwork makes positive things happen. 

Here are a few pictures of the day:

The Location (common room kitchen)

   Actress (Jenessa Tawiah) getting into character 

The mystery letter sent by the attacker 

Day 2 Of Filming

21st March 2012

Throughout some of the days of filming I and the team have decided to do some video diaries, we would be doing the day to day stages of the film. This is just a video explaining what was happening at that exact time and what we were up to whiles waiting to start the filming.

This day was the day we shot the main part of the thriller , this day was for the chase scene to be done. As this part of the opening sequence was the actual thriller scene we had to hope for the best.

One difference from the first day of shooting was that the day looked more promising, this was because my team and I were organised and planned what we were going to do. However there were some silly mistakes and some difficulties.

The difficulties we went through


We could of started the filming a little bit earlier. The reason we did not leave as early was because one of our main actors (Abiola Fatusin) had become hungry, he decided to enjoy a meal of pizza. We allowed him to go and get his pizza as he had been putting up with us telling him what to do and what not, and we want our actors to feel comfortable so that they can preform to the best of their ability.

We also had another problem with our good old friend Mr Tripod, we left it in our Assistant Head of Year's office for safe keeping, we failed to get the tripod before she had left to go home. We didn't let the barrier stop us and decided to use the top of Deon Hunte's (group member) head, this helped us a lot as the shot was steady and how we wanted it.

Another difficulty we went through was my fault. It was not until we had finished the filming for the day I  decided to go through what we have filmed on the day. I had noticed that the particular scene that I filmed and was real happy about was no where to be seen, what had happened was I shot the part when we was celebrating my skilful use of a camera. So one of the main frames of that day was lost and could not be done again because the lighting was not the same. I guess me calling myself Alfred Hitchcock Junior got to my head a bit. However I went back to the location to did the shot again, so we would not lose out on a lot of time, I also had to thank Abiola Fatusin for allowing me to waste some more of his time; but it was all for a good cause.

The Things that went well

The actor and actress helped I and the team dearly as they came in the correct attire, this helped really well so that we could get the mis en scene to the best of our ability.

Another thing I believed went well was the location, this really went well with the type of mis en scene we as a team were looking for. Once again I was put in charge of picking a location and I am flattered that my team loved what I produced. The location was a type of forest were there was a footpath and it looked very scary if I may say so myself. There was a great lighting on that day and we was able to achieve the shots we wanted .

The location of the Scene 

Another thing I believed went well was the teamwork, Although I did a massive mistake in not pressing the record button when we needed to, as a team we laughed about it and worked together to decide what we are going to do to overcome the barrier. We ended up overcoming the barrier and finally finished what was once not  done (Day 3).


Here are a few pictures of my team and I at work (Day 2 Of Filming) :

Group members and actress (Jenessa Tawiah) checking what shot angles are suitable.

Myself in the background directing 

I was afraid of the dark so held on to Lynette, joking. Lynette giving me some directions.

22nd March 2012 (Day 3 Of Filming)

I was told to complete the shots we were missing, as it was only one frame and would not take up much time I decided to do this part of the project on my own. Well I was not alone as I needed the attacker (Abiola Fatusin) to finish the shot, so much thanks goes to Abiola as he allowed me to waste his time once again because of my nonsense. Me and the actor managed to work hard and finally get the shot done, it was not as easy as we though as passer bys decided to walk straight into the shots. After all the difficulties the finish product was watched by my group members the next day, they believed I had done a great job and we continued to think about what we are going to do next.

What was meant to be Day 2 Of Filming

20th March 2012

This days was meant to be the second day of shooting, but there was a few impliacations including the lack of communication. The lack of communication led to one of the main actors (Jenessa Tawiah) not knowing we were going to shoot the second part of the film. Jenessa had to attened something important that she already has comittments for.

The delay has put a bit of pressure on my group and I, but we have planned it well this time and have decided as a group to shoot tomorrow (21st March 2012). The timing would definately have to change, hopefully this would not affect us in a big way. From now have to just 'work our socks off !'

Day 1 Of Filming

19th Of March 2012

The difficulties we went through:

First day of shooting, unfortunately there was a technical difficulty right from the start (battery of camera died), this affected our timing quite badly. However we wouldn't want this to stop us at all so we decided to move on.

Another difficulty was that studying periods are affecting our timing dearly. We all have different timing to each other as in different classes. We as a team have decided to make Media Studies our main objective as we all really want to do well, hopefully achieve a good grade.

A member of our group (Lynette) believed that something was wrong with the tripod, it was not allowing her to get the angle she wants; so she decide to use the handheld method of shooting. I believed that this may affect the film as she may shake whiles shooting from the angle she was in, however I had faith in her and she came out on top.

Things that went well

The Lighting of the room was really good, as the sun allowed the room to be bright all round, which allowed the filming to carry on and go well.


The Location, I was able to sweet talk the Assistant Line Master and her Assistant into using their office to act as our Detective area, so that the mis en scene shows some realness. The office scene went quite well as we got what we wanted out of that day, after going through so any barriers. The office worked well as a detective’s office.

I and a group member decide to appoint Lynette as the person who gets the actors ready. I believed Lynette has the eyes to detect small inputs that may affect the scene in a negative way. We first appointed one of our team members (Deon) to be part of the detective team but he was dressed inappropriately for this scene. However I was able to help Lynette and Deon by getting an actor (Kelechi Asika) to act as one of the staff members in the office with Detective Morris (Me).

Me and Kelechi Asika worked really well as actors because we co operated well and followed the instructions of Lynette who acted as the director that day. This allowed filming to run well and smooth, which allowed a successful shot.

The Costumes that I and Kelechi Asika wore worked really well during the scene. We looked very professional and showed some sort of Verisimilitude.

Photos of what our group got up to:

Our Group At Work

Myself getting into character of Dectective Morris

Lynette showing her camera and directing skills  

Deon and Lynette working together to get the scene right

Actual Finalised Storyline

Title: Live To Tell
Genre: Crime, Drama, and Mystery Thriller
Rating: 15

Storyline: College student Mandy is attacked by a mysterious figure while on her way home from school. A week later when Mandy recovers from her attack she receives a letter in the post and opens it to find a note covered in soil which had a picture of a heart which read "its no fun if your hearts not in it"...


This is the full plot of what will happen throughout the whole film :

Following from when Mandy receives the letter, a series of events unfold which lead to the audience finding out that the antagonist( stalker/attacker) is the good guy but he’s out for revenge because of what Mandy (the protagonist) done in the past which involved him. This is why he wants to make her pay for what she did in the past by stalking, attacking and leaving notes...

The note covered in soil is symbolising death. Because of the location that he will attack her is in a forest area which is muddy and dirty, he's basically trying to say she deserves to be 6 feet underground or under dirt because that's where people are put when they die, and he wants her dead. (This is for the people that may not understand the plot entirely)

We finally came up with a title which Lynette came up with, reason she chose this title is because she had taken it from Madonna’s song 'Live To Tell' which we were going to use in our final product as a backing track. We did not end up using her song although we kept the name because it goes well with the plot.

Costume

The Dectectives (Myself & Kelechi Asika)

• Trench Jacket
• Shirt (White) & Tie (Navy & Red)
• Pin Suit Trousers (Grey)
• Trousers (Black)
• Shirt (Light Blue Shirt)
• Glasses

The Attacker

• Dark Tracksuit (Black & Grey)
• Trainers

The Girl

• Pink Jumper (Connotes innocence)
• Headphones
• Trainers

Codes & Conventions Of A Crime Thriller

Crime Thrillers often highlight the life of a crime figure or a crime's victim(s). Or the rise and fall of a particular criminal(s), gang, bank robber, murderer or lawbreakers in personal power struggles or conflict with law and order figures, an underling or competitive colleague, or a rival gang.  Headline-grabbing situations, real-life gangsters, or crime reports are often been used in crime films.
Doing a Crime thriller is one of my groups possible choices for our opening sequence, so these are some of the things we need to take into account when putting our storyline/storyboard together.

Codes

• Camera work (close ups of the characters to show their emotion).
•   Long shots (establish the location as well as what the characters are doing).
•  Body language (see how the character is feeling). 
•  Fast paced music (create suspense). 

Conventions of a thriller

The characters might range from being:

• Materialistic
• Street-smart
•  Immoral
•  Meglo-maniacal 
•  Self-destructive. 
• Rivalry with other criminals in gangster warfare is often a significant plot characteristic.
• They rise to power showing an ambitious desire for success and recognition, but underneath they can express sensitivity and gentleness.

Settings of a Crime thriller

Gangster/crime films are usually set in large, crowded cities to provide a view of the secret world of the criminal e.g. Dark nightclubs or streets with lurid neon signs, fast cars, piles of cash, sleazy bars and contraband. Crime plots also include questions such as how the criminal will be apprehended by police, private eyes, special agents or lawful authorities, or mysteries such as who stole the valued object. 

Features of protagonist

Often from poor immigrant families, gangster characters often fall prey to crime in the pursuit of wealth, status, and material possessions (clothes and cars), because all other "normal" avenues to the top are unavailable to them. Although they are doomed to failure and inevitable death (usually violent), criminals are sometimes portrayed as the victims of circumstance, because the stories are told from their point of view.

Codes & Conventions Of A Psychological Thriller

Psychological Thrillers

Is a popular sub-genre of thrillers with heavy focus on characters. It often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre genre along with the typical traits of the thriller genre. In addition, psychological thrillers contain elements of and often overlap with the horror genre, especially seen in psychological thrillers.

Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their enemies but are reliant on their mental resources by battling for equilibrium in the characters own mind. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying on one another's mind. E.g. Playing deceptive games.

Themes

Psychological thrillers tend to follow certain themes which is the centre of the story. Some of them as follows are:

• Death
• Reality
• Identity
• Existence
• Purpose

Conventions of a psychological thriller

The conventions of psychological thrillers will include things like:

• Low level lighting- shadows to create fear/tension.
• Quick edits & changes in camera angle- increase the feeling of fear and shock. Often used during significant scenes.
• Music- high tension, eerie, silence.
• Flashbacks- time disorientation confusing the audience or showing the past to give an insight into why the characters are the way they are.
• Black and white colouring- increase effectiveness of shadows.
• Claustrophobic spaces- entrapment of the mind, planes or house.
• Font/colour of title- may be written in a certain way to emphasise the theme of the film.

Finalised Storyline

Here is my group’s brief summary after making a few changes again to the storyline. By using a few of the old ideas we came up with in the planning stages, we now believe this is what we are going to try and stick with.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery Thriller

Rating: 15

Tagline: Its all or nothing

Storyline: A college student called Mandy is attacked whiles she’s on her way home from college and left for dead BUT the plan of the attacker did not happen(Mandy did not die). A week later Mandy recovers from her attack and she receives an envelope from the post, the envelope has a note which is covered in soil. The note had a picture of a heart and read “its no fun if your heart's not in it”  

Planning Ideas

First Idea 

Planning I believe was very difficult at first, this was because we first came up with a psychological idea. The film 'Muholland Drive' inspired us as it was very interesting and had a twist adding suspense throughout the film. The down fall to this was that we would have taken a long time trying to make this work right because if it did not work right it could mess up the filming big time. The idea involved a girl who has an encounter with a man she has never meet before whiles walking down a road, she then notices his shoes (symbolic) which she had believed she'd seen in once before. Immediately after she notices the specific shoes it makes her have a flashback of her being attacked and the last thing she sees is those shoes ..........

 

Second Idea


This idea is very similar to the first, but this time the girl would have had a dream about her being attacked. The next day she would have seen the attacker from her dream walking in the city, which then triggers her flashback ......

Third Idea

My group thought about flipping the stereotype and instead of having a the man as a villain we would have a women instead, that way the audience would not expect this and it would add to the suspense .....

  

Storyboard For Our Film

After a fair amount of planning and researching my group have finally completed our storyboard. We can improve on it, things such as the camera angles and the background features is something we have to look at carefully; but the members of the group and I believe that we have tried our best. We are now very confident about starting our opening sequence, it's just a matter of waiting for the cameras so that we can continue.

Frame 1

Camera angle: An establishing shot of the police station.

Duration: 3 to 5 secs

Audio: No Audio

Dialogue/action: No dialogue or Action

Frame 2

Camera angle: Rotational shot/ mid shot

Duration: 8 to 10 secs

Audio: No Audio

Dialogue/action: Detective looking at the articles and a rotational shot of the room

Frame 3

Camera angle: ECU (extreme close up)

Duration: 10 secs

Audio: No Audio

Dialogue/action: Extreme close up of the articles

Frame 4

Camera angels: Zoom shot of ‘3days later’

Duration: 3 secs

Audio: No Audio

Dialogue/action: No dialogue or Action

Frame 5

Camera angels: Establishing shot and Long shot

Duration: 6 to 10 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Establishing shot of the park area, girl is walking down the path listening to music with a distant figure behind her (Long shot)

Frame 6

Camera angels: High angled shot and Medium close up

Duration: 6 to 10 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Man following girl (high angle shot), man behind girl (medium close up)

Frame 7

Camera angels: Handheld shot

Duration: 5 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Girl running would be done with the Handheld technique as it adds realism.

Frame 8

Camera angels: Handheld shot

Duration:  5 secs

Audio:  No audio

Dialogue/action:  Attacker running would be done with the Handheld technique as it adds realism.

Frame 9

Camera angels: Long shot           

Duration: 6 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Long shot of girl lying on the floor and attacker standing over her.

Frame 10

Camera angels: Low angle shot

Duration: 2 to 4 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Low angle shot of attacker standing over girl to show he has power.

Frame 11

Camera angels: Medium close up and High angled shot

Duration: 8 to10 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: Attacker standing over girl whiles she is on the floor to show that she is vulnerable (High angled shot), then girl looking up at the attacker but we only see the legs of the attacker to keep the identity hidden (medium close up)

Frame 12

Camera angels: No camera angle (Title and credits)

Duration: 6 secs

Audio: No audio

Dialogue/action: No dialogue or action