Task 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

The comparison between the Preliminary task and the Opening sequence of a thriller which we just did are very far apart. The first and most obvious difference to us was the planning involved in the process. The preliminary task took us week to plan. It was the third week of term and we were only just starting to settle in as a group, so the planning was fundamental to achieve any success. Luckily, we had most of this done for us though. The teachers planned most of the fundamental things such as the location, the date, the props and the equipment. All we were let to do was to sort out two actors and to storyboard the 20 second sequence. Not a hard task. However the planning for the horror sequence was a very different story. For this we were in charge of everything. As the producer of the film, I was in charge of most of the organisation and planning of the group. The main part of our planning was that we had to do a production folder, including things such as lighting plans, set plans, location ideas, equipment lists, cast lists, costume and makeup lists and also storyboards. If we didn’t have any of these things it would have made the process very difficult. Once we had got all of these sorted out we then had to do a time plan. This was vital as we only had one day to get all of our things sorted out. Only once all of this was done were we ready to shoot.

The camera work used in the Prelim task was very basic. We had very little experience using cameras and so we tended to stick to the more basic shots such as wide shots, mid shots close-ups and occasionally an over the shoulder shot. We would rely mainly on the dialogue from the script to make the movie, rather than experimenting with different camera shots to create an effect for the audience. However this is the total opposite for our opening sequence. We decided to use no dialogue so all of the tension needed to come out of the camera work. We decided that we weren’t going to be so obvious and decided to do a one shot piece, so we needed to plan out the set and the camera movement out very carefully. We were going to do a two minute tracking shot tracking from one side of the set to another, passing through all of the important powerful images on the way through. This took a whole morning to set up as we had to prepare everything to be perfect if it was going to work. In the end it was very much like we had imagined as it was fairly similar to the working storyboard be one shot across the room.

I think that the use of sound has developed the most in-between the Preliminary task and the Horror sequence. In the preliminary task we kept the sound as simple as we possibly could. We just filmed the scene with the camera and used the camera to pick up the dialogue in the scene. When it came to editing the piece we made no changes to the sound. However in the thriller sequence the sound was one of the most important aspects of the sequence, as we didn’t have any dialogue and the shot was only one shot. We filmed all of the sequence and then once we were happy with what we had we decided to try and pick up as many sounds that we possibly could using a boom. We too sounds of all of the obvious sounds in the scene such as the door, footsteps and the chair. We then sourced all of our sounds in the editing stage and once these had been sorted out we decided to add some music to create the tension of the piece. We collected all of our sounds from Sound Cut Pro and added them to the piece and made it so all of the sounds built up to certain moments of tension. We also faded in the sounds and faded out the sounds at some points to create a slick feeling.

One of the main areas that I personally managed to improve in the most was the editing aspect. I spent lots of time working out the sound of the piece and the credits of the piece. These are both done in the Final Cut Pro section. We started of the sequence with the credits, following the Hollywood style of things and then faded into the scene. This was done using the opacity option on final cut pro. Something that we didn’t use at all in the preliminary task. We then spent the whole sequence on the same shot which saved us a lot of time because we didn’t need to cut any shots into each other. We then faded out at the end of the sequence, again something we didn’t use in the preliminary task. The scene finished with the title card fading in (opacity again) and then fading out. To do the title card we used Photoshop and imprinted disturbing images into the letters to give it a creepy effect. Once we had done this we transferred it to Final Cut Pro and this signified the end of the sequence. We then fad out all of the sound to leave just a black screen.

This first shot of the Preliminary task shows how basic our skills were. We used a very standard mise-en-scene with no lighting effects except from some overhead white lights. We also used very standard, basic shots such as wide shots, and close ups. We very rarely tried anything else and only really stuch to the storyboard instead of experimenting.

However in this screen grab you can see that there is a vast difference with the preliminary task. For example, our lighting was very different. We had a dull dim white light to create a damp atmosphere. We also had a haze machine to create a dusky atmosphere. Lastly our camera movement was very different. For example in this scene we used tracks, where as in the preliminary task all of the shots were still shots. We also varied with our distances so we went from close ups to mid shots to create some variation in the scene.

Pictures of the Shoot and set

On the 28th January we shot the sequence, and here are a few stills that we took to show you what the set was like with the film equipment included. We also had a backstage section where the director spent most of her time, watching the monitor, giving advice to the camera crew and the actor.

Reasons for the Shooting Schedule

Luckly we are only using one actress, which made palnning our shooting schedual much easier. As Petrie will be free all day we didnt need to organise the schedual to suit her needs. Instead we had a look at the story board and gave every shoot a certian amount of time to shoot them in. We then took all of the time and added up these hours. The final stage of the making of our shooting schedual was to give each time section a certain shoot. We then mooved the shots from the same angle together and our shooting schedual was complete.

Equipment list

Most of the equipment listed below will be provided by the Hurtwood House media department and also their Drama deprtment :

1x Roll of LX Tape
2x Redhead video lights + tripods
1x Sony PD170 Mini DV camcorder
1x Fluid Head Tripod
2x 500 min Camera batteries
1x Sennheiser directional Microphones
1x Extendable Microphone Boom Pole
1x Rycote Softie
1x XLR Lead
3x Media (Mini DV cam tapes)
1x Spare AA Battery for Microphone
1x Haze Machine

Our Costume requirments

We have decided that we are going to try and match our character of Elizabeth Carter as much to the young girl from the ring.

In order to do this we have looked at lots of images of her throughout the film and and seen the various different costumes she is in.

She is usually always bear foot, wearing a white loose dress and and her hear dreaping down with a shine.

We decided that we wanted our character to look exactly like this except for wearing a white dress, and to create the shining look to her hair, we will straighten it down and put some wet look jel in her hair. We will then wet it slightly with water. We will also rub a small amount of mud into her feet to make them look dirty.

The account of our shoot day

On the 28th of January me and my group set out to film the opening sequence of our thriller, 'Elizabeth’s Diary'. The day began with the last minute planning of our group. The first thing we did was do gather together all of the props that would be needed and also our actress (Elizabeth). As a group we then went to the film studio where we had a look at the basic outline of the set, and decided what we thought would be the best way to set it up, to look as we had all imagined it. For the rest of the morning we were busy preparing everything to start shooting. This included doing all of the makeup, preparing all of the props, painting the set with blood and then setting up all of the props on the set. Once we had done this we then needed to visualize how we wanted the scene to look, and based on this, set up our tracks. I feel that although we hadn’t planned to spend any of the morning doing these things, this was incredibly useful, as the majority of our piece is fully dependent on the set to create the tension. However there was one area which was unorganized. We had only gone to get the props the day before, which left us only one night to prepare the props to suit the piece. If we had done this a week in advance, we may have even been able to set up some of the set the night before the shoot, allowing us more time on the day.

I feel that the strongest point of the day was the type of shot we used. The whole two minutes of our scene was one track, from one side of the room to the other side, where the hanging took place. This was a major risk that our group decided to take, which either could have been incredibly effective, or in a different circumstance, look a bit daft. This is the reason for why we had to spend the whole morning setting us the set, as every single specific detail had to be perfect in order to pull it off. Unfortunately though, I feel that there was one major disadvantage to this that was if the film didn’t look good in the editing sweet, then we didn’t have any back up shots to use.

We used the Film Studio as we thought that we would be able to set it up to look as much alike what we imagined Elizabeth’s den (where she hangs herself) to look like. The biggest advantage of using the film studio was that we could easily go and pick something up from around the school, if we thought that what we had was either ineffective or just not enough.
The most important things in our scene were the props we used. We decided to but loads of dolls and teddy bears etc and then make them look distraught. This was because we wanted to create an image of Elizabeth being a distressed, crazy and mentally sick child, who is obsessed with torture.

Originally we decided to choose Petrie as our actress. The reason for this is because she had a strong resemblance to the girl character out of the ring. However for the scene that we shot this ended up being quiet irrelevant as we rarely see the character of Elizabeth and when we do see her, it is either her reflection or her feet. If we were to continue filming the film further thought, we would need to use Petrie to act the character.

We decided to use a very simple style of lighting, to make the scene as naturalistic as possible. we used one white light above the set and then had a bulb lowered into the room, to creating the feeling of a room in her house. This was because the room used was later in the film discovered to be Elizabeth’s den. Fortunately this turned out to be very successful, and left our set feeling very much like we wanted it to. We had to use a strong light which shined through the door when Elizabeth opened it, to create her shadow and show the audience she had entered the room.

The final stage of our shooting day was to do the sounds. This took a very short amount of time as we just had to pick up the sound of footsteps, the noose, the door and her choking. This didn’t work very well though as it was incredibly hard to find an atmosphere that was completely silent. However this didn’t matter much as in the post production process of editing, we can look through all the sounds on the Mac and find the suitable ones from there.

On the day I was given the role of general helping. For example I was made to control the fans, help organize everything, help set up the set, give ques etc. The reason for this is because I am the producer, so in the pre production and post production process I am kept very busy. As a team on the day, and over the whole period we worked very effectively together, being one of the most organized groups and constantly developing new ideas, some of which worked and some of which didn’t. On the day we didn’t have one moment where we argued and we didn’t have one moment where we disagreed.

Overall I feel the shooting day went incredibly well. I feel the main reason for this was because we were all determined to make the day work and to work as a team to achieve our maximum potential. Unfortunately our footage didn’t resemble our storyboards in any way, but we did stick to our original idea and came out with some footage which has worked just as we wanted it too. Overall it was a great success.

Our Working Storyboard

This is our most recently done storyboard. Unlike the other storyboard, this is a one shot sequence that has a duration of around two minutes, which is a massive change to the first storyboard, yet with the same concept. The main reason why we decided to do this using one shot was to create an element of tension in the build up to the climax of the scene. In the actual scene we are going to lay toys and pictures, covered in fake blood to give a more intresting look to the mise-en-scene. This will also capture the stereotyipical view of a horror scene.