Draft Evaluation. Jamie O'Dell

Draft Evaluation. Jamie O'Dell

Draft Evaluation. Sam Vigar

Editing

We have started editing and are making good progress cutting all the waste clips we do not want to include in the final product. once we have finished this we are going to concentrate on our sound editing so we have all the effects etc we need added before next Wednesday. as this then gives us 2 days free to go through and check the product so we have time to change little bits we feel could be better! we have been considering the continuity as we go as this means we don't have to then go back and make it flow which means we lose more time.

Pre-editing

something we noticed when we watched the rushes back on a big screen from there was noticeable camera movements where we did not intend it. in some key ares, theirs are only a couple of ten second shots where this occurs and will not take long to correct. this is only a problem because the camera being still in these shots is vital to contrast between film, and being watched (POV).

Filming

we filmed our opening, on Wednesday and it went well. we now have all of our shots apart from 2 which we could not accomplish due to unforeseen circumstances with the car we were using (it broke down) so we need to film those shot over the weekend when the car has been returned. overall filming went very well and we had no major issues at all. we achieved almost everything we felt that we wanted to during the filming session.

Final Props List

Tent
Car X 1
Fishing Wire X 1 reel
Fake Blood x 1 bottle
Holdall Bags x 4
Knife X 1
Road Map X 1
sleeping bags

Opening Synopsis

our opening starts with one of our characters tied from a tree with fishing wire, his skin is all cut and the wire restraints have sliced into his skin. moving back in time our 4 campers are packing the car to leave for their camping trip, and re-tell the story of how we got to our opening shot. the 4 teens arrive at the woods and spirits are high, all of them are looking forward to the trip until.things start to seem strange as they feel they are being watched, strange noises start to be herd on the 1st night.

jamie and sam anomatic

THE BAD BOY SCRIPT.

The Script.


Opening –black screen – soundscape of screaming and pleading.



Opening shot:
Joe secured to tree with razor wire, his skin is completely cut up and he is unconscious, the audience has no idea weather he is alive or dead. We see a large figure barely lit, standing looking at his victim, knife covered in blood, in his hand.


2 Days earlier.

Gemma: please don’t forget to bring anything this time, as much fun as it was you guys forgetting toilet roll last time, I don’t fancy using leaves again.

Joe: chill out will you, it’s all good, were pros now.

Girls: laugh.

Josh: is that everything? I think were ready to go.


All get into car joking and laughing. And start ignition.

All: were on going on a summer holiday (singing)(Pulling out of driveway)

Jo: how long till we get there, Joe I thought you said it wasn’t far.

Joe: according to the map were nearly there, I should have found out where we were going before we decided to come here, I know.

Josh: seriously man, we need to pull over im bursting back here.

Gemma: pshhhhhhh, ha-ha sorry babe, couldn’t help myself.

Josh: you’re not funny; I’ve never needed to go so bad.

Jo: will you two calm down, you couldn’t make your flirting any more obvious.

Joe: it’s this turning, were like 2 minutes away.

Josh: this looks nice and out the way (winks at Gemma)

Joe: seriously you two make me want to gag!

They arrive at a decent spot, and start unloading the car and setting up tents.

Jo: Joe, Where’s the cooker?

Joe: ahh shit I knew I forgot something

Jo: OUT OF EVERYTHING YOU COULD FORGET!

Joe: I’m joking short stuff! Its under the sleeping bags.

They set up camp sun goes down and its dark, the lads have started a small campfire for everyone to sit around. The whole group sits around having a few drinks and reminiscing and telling stories.

Josh: this is going to be one of the best weekends we have had in a long time.

Everyone nods smiles and agrees.

Camera pans around them and focuses on a set of trees behind the group.
The group continue to banter and joke.
We cut to a slit frame between two trees, and the audience start to realise this isn’t going to be a normal camping trip.

Gemma: right im not being funny, but im slightly trashed and its getting late. Im going to bed.

The others, nod and agree and walk off to the tents and all settle down to go to sleep/

Gemma (whispers): josh, did u hear something.

Josh; no, why?

The sound of a tyre bursting startles the group. And Jo Screams….

Jo: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!

Roles-

List of Roles/ Responsibilities.


Sam: Casting director
Head of lighting.

Jamie: head of camera work.
In charge of Props and costume.
Sound

Both: Location Scouts
Editing
Blogging



Cast: Played by:
Joe Burns- Joe Burns
Jo Buckland- Jo Buckland
Gemma Crocker- Gemma Crocker
Josh Grey - Josh Grey


Andy Burse- The ex solider.



we have chosen PA students as actors as means we can focus more on the camera work and mise en scene elements of the opening, as they will pick up what we are trying to achieve. we chose our roles based on what we are good at, for example in my other course i specialize in lighting, and Jamie specializes in sound so it makes sense for us to stick to our strengths to achieve a high quality artifact of work.

Lighting Decisions

For the day time we will use a small amount of borrowed light for the darker areas. Will will be using a natural Gel (straw). for the evening/night time scene, the actors will be sitting around a fire. This by its self may not create a sufficient amount of lighting and so we will use a very dim orange/red to light the characters faces. Within the shots set at night, e.g. in the tent of in the woods we are going to use a ice blue gel as this creates a sense of cold and tension. During the scene where one of the teenagers is tied to the tree we are going to use dim front lighting on him so that we can see the details on his face. The 'soldier' will be back lit to create almost a silhouette like effect - this will make him seem frightening and suspicious to the audience as we cannot tell a lot about the character.

Location shots

Chailey common:
we have decided to use Chailey common for our filming as this possesses the most qualities of our original location. it has dense wood lands along with open bushland and some specific features we saw when we were doing out location scouting which we felt we would be able to use effectively. also we are going to use Sam's house for our scene on the driveway while the characters are packing up the car, we decided this because he lives the closest to Chailey common and we do not feel that this is the most important location in our opening therefor it is convenient for transporting equipment. although we were talking about fire, we are filming in a public place so we may film the camp fire scene on private land in the dark so it will be extremely hard to tell the differences between the two venues, this solves our problem with the public place issues. we are still debating however weather to use the "scrapyard" we were considering filming in as we are not sure if this will add or take away from the opening.

Plot Synopsis

our opening starts with one of our characters tied from a tree with fishing wire, his skin is all cut and the wire restraints have sliced into his skin. moving back in time our 4 campers are packing the car to leave for their camping trip, and re-tell the story of how we got to our opening shot. the 4 teens arrive at the woods and things start to seem strange as they feel they are being watched, little do they know that in the woodland is a psychotic ex solider on the lose and his latest hobby is murder. stalking their every move, one by one they start to disappear, and the remaining teens find themselves running for their lives, with no maps or phone service their last hope is remembering the way out.

Body effects we are going to try and recreate.

 our first shot shows one of our victims cut up and strung to a tree with fishing wire so tight it has cut into his skin. we were wondering how this would look so we goggled it and found some images of what we could make the body of the victim look like.

by having these photos as a reference we can try different methods of creating this effect and compare it to how the real thing would look. as we decide more specific details of the piece we will add more photos of effects we are going to create then when our filming is done will we compare these with the research photos and talk about how we achieved the effect.

Location research

we have started to think seriously about locations, and have looked on the satellite view on Google maps and grabbed screen shots in a plan view. these screen shots are areas we are going to look at for our final filming, and get normal photos of the areas when we look at them.

Chailey Common.

 Ash down forest.

Friston Forest
















We like these locations because as well as possessing dense woodland then also have open brush land which can help us to create a sense of large areas of land, and also means we have more choice of areas to film. which we can combine to create different effects on the audience and sequences in the piece.

LIONK TO VIDEO - WITH BROKEN 180

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IsSFMsoDt4

Pre-liminary.

Sam on the right.

Sam On the left.

Above we have show how the 180 degree rule was broken, this meant that we have to re-film out prelim to show that we understand this rule fully. if we had of seen the error during filming we would have kept Sam on the right of the shot and not the left. we could have also panned round the scene to avoid this rule being broken. 
we are currently working on rectifying our preliminary mistake with the 180 degree rule, this should be completed by mid week, and will be longer in length and have the 180 degree rule included, without breaking it. as we no longer have the means to re-do the shot exactly how it was we are now going, to film the final sequence with different actors, even though this means the piece is slightly inconsistent. we have shown consistency in the original and we are re-filming purely to show we have an understanding of the 180 degree rule.

Pre-production planning. Initial ideas

Plot

• camping trip - isolated woods
• 4 teenagers (17 - 19)
• psycotic ex - soldier living in scrapyard near woods.
• soldier hunts the teens one by one, using military training. 

Narrative - start with the end, then show from the start of the story. (reverse narrative)

Costume

•  teenagers in casual clothing
• soldier in tatty, worn field military uniform. boots.

Props

• car - corsa or pick - up.
• tents
• chairs
• bags
• sleeping bags
• alcohol (fake)
• knife (fake depending on location private or public)
• fishing wire (trip wire)
• rope
• mobile phones 
• lighters.

Ideal locations spec

• modern house on private road
• isolated wood land 
• large area. away from public etc
• dense/thick woodland - possible ashdown forest 
• lake
• hills maybe
• midday and evening filming for perfect lighting conditions
• scrap/junk yard in the dark. We have a contact who owns a yard and is willing to let us film extra footage to add to the story.
• Possible location links

-http://www.ashdownforest.org/
-http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/recreation.nsf/LUWebDocsByKey/EnglandEastSussexNoForestFristonForest
-http://www.chailey.org/nfHome.asp?Section=CHAILEY%20COMMONS%20INTRODUCTION&ButtonPressed=Sadmin25786

Health and safety

• first aid kit on hand at all times, especially when filming in woodland/action sequences
• all fight/action sequences are to be rehearsed
• dangers in each area of woods will be assessed
• fire will be controlled, and sand and water buckets will be near by.

James O'Dell Media Thriller opening scenes analysis

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47772644/Media-blog-thrillers

thriller opening research.- Sam

1. Casino royale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkTOlmSudkE&feature=related m< Video
The opening to casino royale is an extremely gripping and sets up the feeling of a thriller extremely well it does this in a number of ways.
the first thing you notice about the establishing sequence is that its in black and white, this adds to the atmospheric effect, and really gives a tense feel to the sequence, also a lot of the shots are long shots in the first 30 seconds or so, and this is combined with movement (tracking) through a corridoor to give the impression were following our opening character through this dark building. also we have low angle shots used in a really clever way, these are used to show power in the male character we first see, but they are actually used to deceive the audience as we do not know what is about to happen, we are lured into a false sense of knowlage, which is then revealed to us when our first character is the confronted with our actual protagonist. The costumes are also very official in this opening with both characters wearing suits, this gives them status and lets us know they both play an important role in the film, and opening sequence.
The scenes are really dimly lit and this is boosted by the fact the scenes have been shot in black and white, this helps build the tension from the moment the first character enters the building.  facial expressions also give away information when we see the first character remove himself from the car his eyes scan the area, which makes us think hes not supposed to be here. Sound in the opening scene is paralell to what we are seeing on the screen the opening track is very dark and creepy which mixes extremely well with the black and white screen play and the dim lighting. the editing is mainly cuts, apart from a couple of extremely quick fades, when we enter and exit flash backs, in the flash back moments we see alot of quick cuts as the flash back is of a fight this makes it seem as though everything is happening faster then it is.

2. Underworld evolution ( i am well aware that the film contains supernatural beings, but it possess more thriller qualities then it does horror)
The opening to underworld is very effecteive in gripping an audience and setting the story, we start with an editied in peice of text explaining the backstory behind this film, and what happen in the first one. this method has the audience hooked on the screen as they read the text, we then cut into a extreme close up of one of the protagonists eyes, which zooms out slowly revealing the whole face, this grips the audience even more and creates suspence as we want to see who he is. the opening setting was chosen extremely well, and is filmed at night to create tension, we see a hamlet that has been attacked and set on fire. our protagonists have showed up to investigate the attack. the sound in the opening scene is paralell to the suspense we are seeing in the screen play, as we get closer to a big event the dynamics increase and more intrumental layers are added. the style in which this is done enforces the tension and how important it is, before an event happens. the opening is set in 1202 AD and this is reflected in the costumes, and props within the opening scene, our protagonists as they seem to be, are dressed in full armour and all mounted on horse back. also our setting, looks like a hamlet in 1202AD would be expected to look, wooden houses, with a few small out buildings. with thatched roofs, this really helps enforce the time period the directors were aiming for. the lighting is dim  which is a feature of thriller, as the darker a scene is lit the more sinister or tense feel we gain from it.


ANDREW: this is not all of my research but i havent had time to copy the rest over into the blog. i will have the rest up by tomorrow but i have to go to work.

Probelms Preliminary

We have to re-film a small part of our piece as we broke the 180 degree rule. This was simply poor planning and can be quickly and easily rectified. Lighting in the last scene was also really poor as the location was not ideal. as this is being re-filmed this is not an issue however for future projects it should be remembered.We also should try and leave more space around each conversation shot as otherwise it appears to rushed. Also our framing was off in places and could most definitely be improved.

Issues we had.

we ended up having to film our peice twice, because our first actress became unwell and we needed to get the rest of the filming done, so we had to find another actor to be part of the peice, and re-film the shots with him.
also our production process was interrupted by sudden illnesses and work commitments throughout the group, this meant that we had to work while someone was missing during ceartin stages of the process, we found it was important to make sure even in absence everyone knew how far we'd gotten and what needed to be done, so if someone was ill and someone else picked up where they left off they could just get on with it.

Before filming our preliminary excercise we went around the college, and took photos of locations we would like to use! these are some of the photos we took when we were location scouting, we liked these locations because they didnt look like classrooms and didnt scream that it was filmed in a college as this was not what we were trying to display.