Shooting Diary

First Filming Day - 22nd Jan

Our main task for today was to complete the first scene of the film where sam runs up to his room a begins his hallucination. All the equipment was charged the night before and ready to go. We arrived at around 11 at Sam's house in Poulner. It was quite straight forward however the battery for our microphone (attached to top of camera) stopped working and therefore there were some scenes which lacked sound. This was not too much of a problem as their was no dialogue in the scene so it will be easy top add sounds after. Next time we film I think we will use the internal mic as sound is not so important for us.

Second Session- 5th Feb

We got another scene of the film done today. We finished the scene after Sam's hallucination which went quite smoothly. We used the internal mic this time so their was no problems with sound. I have transferred the footage across to the computer and is on premiere pro. I have also started to get the footage in rough order so we can see where the film is going and how long the parts we have filmed are going to be in the final film.

Third Session- 19th Feb

Today we filmed the scene down at Linford Bottom when sam is having his hallucination. It went okay however we did have to do lots of takes as Sam had a bit of "trouble" with the car. Apart from that it went well. It was slightly dark footage but the car provided enough light to see whats going on. this footage has also been put onto the computer and added to the sequence

Forth Session- 5th March
We have now filmed the last scene which was very successful. We also played around with a few new shots to experiment with in the edit. Our only slight problem was getting the camera caught in the reflection but wasn't hard to fix. Overall I think that the filming has gone quite smoothly. I think that is mainly down to using the internal mic and not trying to use anything that could let us down.

Location and Costume

Location-

For our location we have chosen to set most of the film at the main characters house as this gives the impression of an ordinary guy and the location does not give any false representations of the character. We also think that the home is an isolated spot away from the public which also makes it easier to film as well as helping to represent his isolation. The hallucination location will be filmed  at Linford Botton in the forest. This location has great significance as was important for us to choose a location that added to the scary nature of the scene. The isolation and emptiness of the forest also represents the characters feelings throughout the film.

Costume-

the costume of the main character is quite insignificant as we wanted to portray and average guy to make it easier to relate to. therefore we are just telling our actor to wear some everyday clothes. However the costume for the character in Sam's location needs to be scary and add an uneasy element to the visual effect of the film. The gas mask adds mystery to the character and also creates a negative vibe as well as being scary. We are also going to have our gas mask character wearing a military dark coat. The dark colour of the coat has instant connotations to the audience and will also add to the negative atmosphere of the character.

These are our storyboards which we have created inline with out shooting script to give a visual representation of the shots we are aiming to use. This will help us when we come to shoot the film.

Shooting Script

For our short film we have decided to draw up a rough shooting script to give us some direction and structure to our filming process. This is should provide the details for most of the shots we will use however when we start filming we may decide to play around with different shots that may look better depending on location etc.

Black = Shots
Red = Titles, sound

19:22

Close up of Sam head in hands
Mid shot shows sam in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror
Behind the shoulder shot of sam looking down at his hands shaking Small title of time approaching 19:22
Side on long shot of Sam slowly sitting down on the floor
Close up of sam staring directly into the camera confused
Camera attached to the door as sam opens and leaves
Sound of heavy breathing introduced
Over the shoulder shot of Sam walking towards room
Side on tracking shot of sam increasing speed
Sound Building
"head cam" shot (hand held by sam) running away
Title of 19:22 flash
Mid shot of sam entering bedroom
Side on shot of sam falling onto bed
Close up camera shake of Sam's eyes
Distorted drone effect...... sudden loud sound effect leads into sound of heavy breathing.... title 19:22 
Close up of Sam's eye opening, tracking close up to upright position 
Mid shot of sam in car looking confused 
Close up of sam turning ignition
Extreme close up of lights turning on 
Cut to long shot of car showing Gas mask character in the headlights
LOUD UNCOMFORTABLE SOUND.... DIAGETIC?
Side of close up of sam looking shocked/scared
Engine Revving  
Close up of wheels spinning
Dashboard shot of car accelerating into gas mask character
Side on long shot of above
close up of sam's face scrunching 
Thud of man hitting the car
Over the shoulder shot of sam driving away panicking looking around
long shot of sam pulling into a lay-by and stopping
side on mid shot of Sam's head on the steering wheel
fade to black screen fades into.......
Settling music
Mid shot of sam laying in bed and waking suddenly 
Close up handled shot of sam rising
Mid shot of sam putting head into his hands relaxed in over held shot
Extreme close up, shaking camera of gas mask character 
Loud sudden noise similar to before
Handheld shot of sam (head cam style) going from prone to upright quickly 
Uneasy quiet sounds 
Heavily backlight side on close up shot of sam with look of despear
Mid shot of above
fade out
Some change of time shot
Title of time just before 19:22
Over the shoulder of sam looking at mirror
Side on tracking shot, Sam rests his head onto mirror, he pushes away from the mirror using hand holding gun
Uneasy Music becomes more significant and louder
Close up of sam eye slowly closing and opening
Over the shoulder shot of sam raising gun to side of head
Sam screams and puts the gun down
Music intensifies, Title 19:21
Handheld camera shake, close up showing background sam with gun to head again
Title changes to 19:22, music getting louder
Gas mask character approaching sam........ fade to black
Sound of gas mask character scream....gunshot
Credits appear to exit music

Target Audience

The films which are similar to our clip are 'pi' and horror films such as 'dawn of the dead'.
The target audience would generaly be 16 year olds plus, and mostly male as there is a hint of violence within the film. The target audience would also consist of people intrested in phycological films such as 'pi' and horror films such as 'dawn of the dead'.

Names

19:22 

The name for the film is 19:22 which is important as it is the time at which his hallucinations start. The tittle has significance however we have received feedback from people saying that 19:22 looks like the run time and may be misleading. If i were to crete it agin I would probably rename it to avoid confusion.

Purple Productions

We chose to call our production name purple as it is not related to any genre which prevents any “type casting” so to speak as the name is so ambiguous. We chose the colour purple instead of red for example; because as well as providing alliteration, making it roll of the tongue, it’s also a neutral colour not associated with any emotion. ( e.g. red being associated with anger.

Research Into Editing Techniques

Requiem For A Dream Trailer

In this post I am going to look at editing techniques from other films which may be relevent to our film. All these screen shots have been takien from the film Requiem For A Dream (2000) This film is along the same genre as the film we want to create. The film is about four drug addicts who are all addicted to different drugs for different resons. The film uses lots of different editing techinques to show the state of mind of the characters aswell as some general techniques.

This technique splits the screen into two and provides the audience with a two point perspective. This is an effective technique as it gets rid of the need to cut between the two different shots. This shot shows the character but also shows what she is looking at which makews it effective.

This shot is used in the film as the characters take drugs. This shot is used during extremley quick shot changes which happen everytime the characters take a hit. The shot shows the blood stream and is effective as it shows the chemical change happening in their bodies and therefore gives the audience the idea of what is happening.

This shot is very effective and uses the fish eye effect to distort the image. This is works very well as it represents her state of mind at the time very well.

This effect is also effective however it is a camera technique instead of an editing technique. It is hard to see from this screen shot, however the camera is attached to the character and works well as the camera moves with the movement of the charcter. This is effective for showing the journey of a person aswell as the charcters emotion as the camera is fixed on the charcters face.

This effect is called ghosting and gives the impression of time slowing down and also conveys the characters feelings and state of mind. This is a simple technique that we could use in our film to show our charcter when he is entering his hallucination.

This is a very clever editing technique which shows the charctes state of mind. The camera shakes violently and blurs the image. The camera shakes increases asa the scream of the charcter get louder. This connects the sound and the visuals closley to great effect.

This effect is called a time lapse and shows a long scene from a fixed camera point which is speed up. All of the movement in the scene is played faster than reality which is useful for showing a long recording in a short amount of time. This scene shows the characters lifestyle. This effect could be used in the hallucination stage of our film.

This film uses a lot of editing techniques that suit the genre, these are some of the techniques we would like to use in our film as we feel that they represent the genre well and would visually fit in with our film.

Mood Board

This is our mood board and is a collection of pictures and words that represent our film and the general theme. Looking at our mood board it is easy to see the genre of our film as the colours are dark and show the horror genre. We have used a mix of horror pictures as well as pictures that reflect the psychological side of our film.

Movie Poster Analysis

This is the french teaser poster for Le Ballon Rouge. The poster uses the ballon which is the focus of te film and incorporates it into the title text which is very effective. The simple colours of the poster are contrated by the red ballon which draws the attention of the viewer to the ballon. This is a teaser poster which means it is not suppose to give away the title of the film and the poster only shows the title of the film and the director. I like this poster as it uses colour to focus attension on the poster and also incorporates the ballon into the text.

This poster is for the film lord of war which is about an arms dealer. The poster is effective in that it incorporates the profile of the main character in bullets. This is clever as it is a subtle indication as to what the film is aboutwithout giving it away. This poster also has little information on it aswel, only displaying the title and the actor (Nicloas Cage) I like this poster as it incorporates the bullets with the picture which is very clever. We could do something similar to this where two images are combined.

This is a poster for the 2010 film devil. this poster is highly effective and makes good use of black space to represent the film. Like the other posters the image of lift buttons are incorporated into the text which makes the poster effective. The poster does not give away any information about the film other than the location of the film which is a lift. The creative black space does not visually show anything, however it does represent the atmosphere of the film.

This is a teaser poster for the film Saw III. It is clear to see from the poster what the films genre is and as it is the 3rd Saw film it does not need to show very much as the audience will already be familiar with the Saw franchise. Again this poster combines images with text by using the scratches on the wall to show the number 3 which is highly effective. Visually the poster shows a dirty wall and a person fingers with blood on them, this clearly shows the genre of the film but does notgive away any information to the story of the film.

Land Of The Dead Analysis

Land Of The Dead Youtube Video
This film is cleverly structured so that it is clear to the audience what is going on a the opening displays many different horror/ zombie conventions. Opening shots are very effective at setting up the story and therefore give the audience a clear idea of the zombie outbreak. The film tells the story at the very start when a voice over explains what has happened and brings the audience up to date with the situation. The black and white footage when the voice over is ocuring suggests to the audience that the events being described and have already occured. This is and effective technique as it makes the audience aware of what is going on when the film returns to present day. The distorted footage of the past is a typical convention of horror films as it makes the audience uncertain. The Dark footage at the start of the film also suggest a horror film. The title ‘Today’ clearly shows a change in time and tells the audience that the film has jumpes to present day. An establishing shot sets up the rest of the scene which then tracks down to show the zombies. This film is not typical of horror films as usually the outbreak occurs during the film whereas in land of the dead the outbreak occurs before the film starts. 

Analysis Of Strangers

Strangers is a short film set in the underground subway system and shows a modern take on the tension between the jewish community and the neo nazi’s. From the mise en scene it is clear from the start that this film is all about different beliefs as theman already seated on the train is reading an arabic newspaper. The man who enters the train is wearing a star of  david necklace which immediatley identifys him of jewish religion and he makes a point to convay this to the arabic man using subtle eye contact. The director builds the suspense between the two characters by using no dialogue only the diegetic sound of the train. he also creates suspense among the the audience by using slow chot changes between the two characters. The dim unatural lighting of the underground further highlights the awkward unatural situation. Two more men enter the train and sit near the arabic and jewish man. The two men have shaves heads, tattoo’s and piercings and convey the message of being aggressive. The director then decides to show a shot of a nazi symbol tattoo which shows the audience that the two men are neo nazi which creates a further tension in the train. There is still no dialogue used to add to the tension and the diagetic sound of the underground creates unatural and awkward sounds. The shot changes are still slow to build the tension further and the director decides to show close up shots of the men making eye contact with each other. The credits then appear and the screen goes black however still continues with the diagetic sound of the scene which leaves the rest to the audiences imagination.

Our Idea

Our Idea for our A2 media project is similar to our film last year in the genre and the conventions that come with it. I feel our film last year was successful however there were things that I would have liked to changed, so hopefully this will be a more polished film. Our film idea is to create a short 5 minute horror film. The film is about a character called Sam who blacks out and has scary hallucinations similar to him being in a horror film. These trips last for 1 hour and happen at the same the same time every day (7:22). This has only recently been happening to Sam and therefore he is very panicked and shaken up by his experience. He is on antiphsycotic drugs which have no effect since he has begun taking them. The film follows Sam on two hallucinations and shows how the experience has changed his everyday life. The end of the film sees Sam out of his mind and terrified as 7:22 draws closer. He takes over his prescription of his drugs and begins to feel even worse and out of control of his body. In an unbearable state he takes his own life just before 7:22.

A2 Media Studies