Friday 24th (Double Period) - Shannen

Today we got a lot of work done, seeing as we have a new member to the group (hi Colette Mary!!!)
Colette did some work on this blog, making more posts about sound, and then helped Manny with what he was doing. She also looked at some potential foley effects for our soundtrack.
Manny has been editing the footage, and making experiment videos for the blog.
Shannen made the animatic (see post below) and generally made everyone happier.


:-)

The Animatic

Behold: The Shanimatic 

Dialogue and Sound - Colette

We have decided to not use too much dialogue in the sequence because it makes the scene seem more dramatic when the character finally speaks. When the charcter does speak, she is calling frantically for her daughter and the babysitter which creates enigma and the feeling of shock.

Mother: 'Laura? Laura? I'm Home! Laura?'

Mother: Emily? Emily!!

Mother: 'Hello?'

Once we have made a rough cut of our film, we will put it on Garage Band and make an initial practice soundtrack with foley effects to upload on here. We will then go back to Final Cut, make sure it's perfect and then make the final version of the soundtrack in Garage Band.

Lighting - Colette

At the beginning when the mother is driving home and getting shopping out of her car we will use relatively natural lighting. Once the mother finds out that her child has disappeared we will use low key lighting. The lighting will be the most dramatic in the child's bedroom. The sudden change in lighting will shock the audience as it shows how fast something bad can happen in a normal everyday situation.

Change in Roles - Colette

As we've gained a new group member the roles in our group have changed.

Storyboard artist - Manny
Location organiser - Manny
Prop manager - Shannen
Casting - Shannen and Manny
Director of filming - Shannen and Manny
Sound-Colette

We will all take turns to edit

Colette's Previous Blog

www.foundationportfolio1226.blogspot.com

The Shoot - Shannen/Manny

We had a two day shoot, on the 16th and 17th of february in the half term, of which we managed to capture the majority of our film footage.
We took over the location - Manny's sister's house - and made it into our set. There was stuff everywhere, literally. Manny went a bit mental.
We also borrowed someones car. It was a bit nerve-racking watching Manny and Rhiannon drive, but we got good shots!

We are going to look and work with the footage we have now, but if we find that a shot is not good enough, or we want more shots, we will go back and film some more ASAP.
Thankfully, we think we got most of it, and many shots of the same thing to choose from in the half term.

Filming

Just booked out our equipment for half term!
We will hopefully be filming on thursday/friday of half term.

Props

The props we will need are........................

• a shallow wooden bowl

• a landline phone with dock

• car

• car keys

• tv remote batteries

• tv

• dummy

• crib

• baby clothes

• toys

• nappies

• used cups

• magazines

• photograph/frame

• baby bottle

• milk

• kettle

Character's clothing:

• needs to look like an average mum and woman :)
• jeans
• plain pumps
• vest top
• scarf
• cardigan
• coat
• messy up ponytail - shows lack of time
• necklaces
• rings (maybe wedding ring) not sure
• watch, definately maybe a bracelet

things that will be on screen during filming:

• the smashed bowl/key scenario
• tv remote smashed on floor
• dummy on stairs
• smashed photo/photo frame 
• half used bottle/kettle finished boiling/ lid somewhere else

RISK ASSESSMENT FORM!!!!!!

RISK ASSESSMENT FORM
Assessment by:	Andy Hampson	Assessment for:	Filming internal to college		Date:	02 02 10

Activity	Hazard	Risk	Persons in Danger	Existing Control Measures in Place	S	L	R	Control Measures Required	C
Walking to and from filming location	Illness / Injury	Slip/Trip/Fall, General Illness, Faintness	Learners	Safety talk Experience of Public areas Supervision. Make sure students with Mobiles have college number.	1	2	2		A
Carry filming equipment	Strain Slips, trips and falls	Injury Slips, trips and falls	Learners	Students to be given manual handling information before going to film. RA to be signed by tutor which explains how equipment will be transported and whether this is within a safe distance to carry equipment. Equipment is signed by both student and technician to avoid students borrowing equipment without tutor’s prior knowledge.	2	1	2	Continued reinforcement of proper forms prior to filming.	A
Theft	Assault	Injury	Learners	Learners must film in agreed production groups. students must inform staff as to where they are filming and staff will assess risk	2	1	2	Continual awareness Continued reinforcement of proper forms prior to filming.	A
Filming	Environmental factors. Slips, trips and falls Uneven paths Identifcation	Injury. Removed from college	All staff	Recce to be completed by student and seen by lecturer. Students informed to make sure area is clear and kept clear of camera bags etc. All equipment to be properly installed in accordance with Acceptable Usage Policy of the college. Students will be given a sign to say they are from the media department which should be displayed while filming. All students should carry their ID with them should security ask for identification. Reception (and hence security) should be made aware students are filming by either the lecturer or the students themselves.	2	1	2	Continual awareness Continued reinforcement of proper forms prior to filming.	A
Other college users	Slips, trips and falls	Slips, trips and falls	All Staff and students	Security Staff and reception are notified when students are filming. Students told that they should not be filming with friends outside of the course,	1	1	1	Generally all staff should intervene where behaviour contravenes the code of conduct. Security to be notified when students are filming.
Trailing Wires	Slips, trips and falls	Injury	All Staff	All wires to be taped down user electrical tape.	2	1	2	Students are given a safety talk prior to filming outside of the classroom.

Key:	S =	Severity I (low) to 3 (high)	C = Conclusion [insert ‘A’ for adequately controlled] [insert ‘N’ for not adequately controlled] WHERE ‘N’ IS THE CONCLUSION, AN ACTION PLAN IS REQUIRED
	L =	Likelihood 1 (low) to 3 (high)
	R =	Rate = S x L

The equipment list

We are going to book out (hopefully):

• HD camera (pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaseeeee)
• Tripod
• Dolly
• Lights - 1 umbrella 1 small handheld light

The name of our thriller!!!!!!!!

We came up with a few ideas, including:

• Baby
• Creche
• Missing

But our final choice was....................

"Out Of Place" !!!

Detailed Synopsis of the Opening

The scene would open with an establishing long shot of the house. Then it would pan to a close up to kids playing in the street infront of the house. There would then be a high angle long shot of a car pulling into the drive and the kids moving out of the way. Next, there would be a close up of someone's feet getting out of the car. Then cut to a boot shot of someone taking shopping bags out of the boot, still not seeing their face, then shut the boot.
The camera would then be a medium close up tracking shot of the back of the person's legs, the shopping bags and feet, following them to the door. Cut then to a straight on medium shot of the woman at the door, looking for her keys in her bag (shot as if the camera is the door). Close up of putting key into the door and turning it, opening the door, then match on action long shot of her going through the door, shutting it and putting her bags down (this would be shot from furthur down the hall).
Close up of her feet kicking her shoes off, then close up of her face as she looks to the left and looks puzzled. Close up of empty side table, then pan down to see smashed bowl on the floor. Back to the straight on long shot of the woman putting her keys down on the table, still with a puzzled look on her face.
Long shot from behind as she walks down corridor and turns into living room, match on action as she comes into the room, close up on her puzzled face.
Cut to medium shot of tv on, then pan to sofa where no one is there, and toys are on the floor. Cut to mid shot of character bending down to look at something on the floor. Close up on a dummy and broken toy on the floor. Cut back to mid shot of character bending over and fingering them, frowning.

NOT FINISHED

Location

For our opening, the only location we would need would be a house. For this, we want to use Manny's sister's house. We chose this location because we needed a house that looked like it belonged to a family who had a young child. This house is good for this setting because the occupant of the house has a young child, therefore making the mise en scene part planning easier as part  of the filming is set in a babies bedroom.

 Films of the thriller genre are generally set in urban settings, however as we live in a relatively rural settings it was hard to think of a possible setting. As the house is located near a lot of other houses we decided it would be easy to make the house seem like it is in an urban area.  Here is a screenshot of it that we got from google maps (we'll upload proper pictures later)

We would also be using the tree for high angle shot filming (I'll make Manny climb into the tree)

Initial Idea

The main idea would be that a woman has gone out shopping, leaving a babysitter to look after her young baby. She would arrive home to notice things out of place, such as the bowl where her keys usually go is on the floor smashed, and shoes missing. The TV is left on in the lounge with the babysitter and child both nowhere to be seen. She would go upstairs, seeing more unusual things, to go and see if they were in the child's room. The door would be edged open, weirdly, and no one in there. The woman is distraught. The phone would then go off, so the panicky woman would run to her bedroom, to answer the phone, which is next to a smashed picture of her and her child. The phone would be silent, only with the cries of her baby. The scene would end with the titles.

Lighting task work!

 This is a photo we took using side lighting, but also a dim use of back lighting to outline the shape of Lettie's head and shoulders etc. 

 In this shot we used full front lighting, this allows us to take a lot of shadow off of a persons face when using lighting it also keeps a lot of shadow to the back of them so its an almost sinister look. 

 In this shot you can see that we used lighting from underneath Lettie, using this lighting can give a menacing look to a character. 

 In this shot we only used side lighting, using this lighting can give a variety of looks, an example would be of someone who is a victim or is scared. 

 In this shot we only used back lighting, using back lighting creates a silhouette of the person so you can only see there shape or outline which could also be used to mask a villain or even the hero 

In this photo we used lighting from above Lettie, this can give someone an angelic look to show they are innocent or a victim. 

Roles

Storyboard artist - Manny
Location organiser - Manny
Prop manager - Shannen
Casting - Shannen and Manny
Director of filming - Shannen and Manny

Initial Idea for opening

[insert sound here]

Deadline two

A completed storyboard for the entire opening (preferably having used ‘post it’s), including initial ideas about title placing. 

This needs to be made into an animatic of approximately the same length as the final film will be (shots to be timed carefully) with a voice-over explanation and embedded onto the blog.

Also:

- a synopsis for the whole film narrative from which this will be the opening (about 100 words),

- the script for any dialogue,

- list of roles (see pre-production planning advice)

- images of locations and decisions about locations,

- prop research and justification in terms of character and story

- health and safety, including risk assessments for filming and use of equipment.

- lighting decisions.