Thriller Final Cut

Tiltes continued

We decided to start experimenting with different fonts, effects and positions of the text on seriff. We needs our titles to strongly reflect the narrative of the film and creat an eerie and mysterious feel for the audience, they will also need to relate to our psychological crime genre.  The main storyline of the clip is the grooming over a chat website, so we’ve linked the transition of the text to this theme. The text types across the screen like you would type on a computer, and even the text is simliar to a type writer, and added a flashing cursor to give ultimate effect.

We have decided on the following elements:

• Size of Font: We have decided to make the name of the person bigger then their title, to make it stand out more, and to make the audience concentrate more on the name of the editer for example, rather then the job.
• Transitions: We’ve chosen the titles to type across the screen, reflecting the nature of the technology used in the thriller.
• Duration on screen : We have decided to slow the typing down, as the characters will be typing around about this pace during the film and have made sure each title is on screen for the same duration, with the production company being seen for slightly longer.
• Font style and colouring: We have chosen a traditional white or black, as this is the automatic colouring for fonts on the computer, and we wish to stick to the computerised theme throughout the film.
• Effects: We’ve chosen to have an effect on the titles to make them slightly blurred, to suggest a sense of confusion relating to the state of mind of the character.
• Positioning on the screen: If the titles play across a black screen they will be centred, although we yet need to decided if the titles are going to play over footage or not.
• Needs to reflect the narrative: The main storyline of the clip is the grooming over a chat website, so we’ve linked the transition of the text to this theme. The text types across the screen like you would type on a computer, we’ve also chose the courier new font also, as it looks like it has been typed on a typewriter, and added a flashing cursor to give the ultimate effect.

We have also decided to leave out director of photography and production manager in our opening titles, this was due to the fact that we are only filming a small part of the opening and didnt feel these were necessarily needed.

Here is a clip of one of the titles we have been practicing on serrif:

Risk Assessment and Logistics

We decided to put all the things that could go wrong into a chart and think about how we could avoid these from happening. By having a level of risk we are able to see the things we need to consider before our filming day.

Logistics

To ensure that everyone is at the right place at the right time and everything runs smoothly we have set out who will be doing which tasks. By dedicating each person to a role will help the filming process go to plan and improve our organisation.

• Acting: Joe Hart & Holly Parsons
• Camera Work: Holly Parsons & Alice Sorenson
• Editing: Alice Sorenson & Holly Parsons
• Soundtrack: Alice Sorenson & Holly Parsons

Equitment

• Camera
• Battery
• Battery charger
• Tripod

 

Show evidence ofexperiment with camera

Costume, Props, Setting, Mis en Scene

Costume

Female Actor: We are planning for our teenage actor to be wearing a customised ‘scruffy’ school uniform. This will allow for us to portray her age accurately as a vulnerable  and weak school girl but at the same time show her rebellious attitude. She will have her tie short and loose with jewellery, make up and a short skirt to represent the stereotypical school girl image. School uniform will also be necessary as she has just arrived home from school and is arguing with her mum about being chucked out.

Male Actor: Although you are only going to see our actors face and therefore his costume may not have a big impact, we have decided to dress him in an old scruffy shirt to signify his old age and dominance. He will have his sleeves rolled up and an untidy appearance suggesting he has been up waitint for Chantelle to return. It is possible that we may have him wearing a ‘Daddy’ bracelet to help emphasise the relationship between Chantelle and ‘Joe’, although we are going to get some feedback on whether this is needed or not.

 Props

http://prezi.com/j6uevqhn-cia/props/

Setting

We are going to be filming in two different locations. The first setting that will be seen is Chantelle’s bedroom, it will be a bit messy portraying her laid back rebellious attitude and will have various pieces of furniture such as a chest of drawers, bed, TV etc. This will help us to achieve a realistic feel to the clip without it coming across as too setup, however, we also want to avoid the setting looking too much like a home-made video and want to have a professional aspect to it. Our next location will be ‘Joe’s’ room, this will have dark lighting creating a mysterious aspect to the film without only the computer screen for light. It will be a very basic room with little furniture apart from the essentials.

 

 

 

Organisation

• Credit card – Holly
• Diary & pen – Holly
• Bed – Holly
• Laptop – Holly
• Mug & coaster – Alice
• Pill bottle – Alice
• Holdal bag -  Holly
• Pinboard – Alice
• Photoframe – Alice
• Photo – Alice
• Desk – Alice

Soundtrack Research

• Typing on a keyboard

Because a lot of the communication between the characters is between computers, we obviously need a sound effect of someone typing on a computer keyboard. Because we are using a laptop for the character of chantelle we need a bit of a different keyboard sound to the computer “joe” will be using. As joe only replied with short answers i imagine the sound of the typing will be quite slow, as he is making her wait also for his reply. Chantelle’s typing will be quite fast to show her desparation, and maybe also that teenagers have better commication with technology then adults, so her typing skills should be more advanced then his.

• Writing

Chantelle often writes in her diary and so we could have a sound of the pen brushing the page – like the sound of a fountain pen perhaps. We need this to maybe show the depth of her feelings coming out in her writing.

• The message alert sound (of the internet chat)

 We need the message alert sound to show that joe has replied on the chat, and it will also be more realistic as many social networking programmes such as MSN and Facebook Chat use this feature. We can also use this to see the reaction of the character when they hear this, as they know the other person has replied.

• Shaking of the pills in the jar

we want it to be obvious to the audience that “joe” is going to drug Chantelle and so we need him to throw a bottle of pills into the overnight bag for the hotel. The pill bottle we are using is tinted and so to make the props seem more real, we need to add a sound to make the audience think that there is something inside of it. If we have a sound of pills shaking it may suggest there are many pills inside the bottle, and give more of a sinister effect, as it is up to the audiences own imagination what they’re going to be used for.

• Zipping of the bag

We could have two different zipping sounds to separate two different locations. For example “joe” and chantelle are both packing a bag, and we could have a different zipping sound for each character, to represent their both going forward with the plan, and the zip of the bag is sort of the confirmation for this.

• Opening of draws

If we have a sound of opening draws in the background, it could suggest chantelle is packing up all her belongings to run away. We could have this sound perhaps when we see her writing ‘goodbye’ in her diary. We could also hear some other sounds, pehaps the shoving of things into a bag, to suggest the reason she is writing goodbye is because she is running away.

• Telephone ringing

We need the telephone ring twice in our opening. We could perhaps have two different ring tones, one for a mobile, and one for a house phone perhaps. The telephone ring we need is the kind when your calling somebody and you can hear the phone ringing them, unline the kind of ringtone you hear when you are being called yourself. This will be needed when “Joe” (Mark) is ringing up to book a hotel, and also when the mum (Julie) is ringing the police to file a missing persons report.

• Jumping on bed

We need the kind of crease in the covers type sound, when Chantelle throws down the laptop onto the bed and lays down on it herself. It should be quite a faint sound, not the kind of springing sound when a child is jumping on the bed.

• Sound of cup on desk

The sound of the cup banging down on the coaster is an essential moment as this is when we see the matching photograph of chantelle and her dad on the desk in the background. we have a coaster on the desk ( which could possible say best dad) so the sound needs to be more of a clink if the coaster is a glass one.

•     Smirking/Laugh

When we have the shot of “joe’s” mouth, smirking we could have a litttle grunt of satisfaction, as he knows his plan is running smoothely, and Chantelle is right where he wants her

•  Clicking of mouse

There is a close-up shot of chantelles fingers on the mouse, so we need a clicking sound and also like a grazing sound as a laptop has more of a mouspad which you scroll your fingers over rather then a separate mouse.

• Door Slamming

Slamming of doorswhilst chantelle is writing goodbye in her diary because she is about to run away, we could have the slamming of the front door to add to all the other sounds leading up to her departure, (such as packing bag, opening draws etc.) The slam of the front door is kind of the last time chantelle is in the house, so it is quite a significant moment.

Animatic Feedback

We got feedback from our teacher on ways we could improve and change our animatic when filming.  This helped us to get an understanding of things we need to consider when filming and our stengths and weaknesses:

Mr.Dunford:

“The use of close ups that highlight props and emotions is very good. I also like how you establish the importance of the letter by filming it from differnt perspectives. The duration of some shots are too long. Thus, they need trimming and shoots be on the screen for less ammount of time. Also, think about how you can incorprate pans/zooms into your idea.”

We also got feedback from our peers on thier thoughts & opinouns on our ideas:

Kariena Tubbs:

“I think the use of close up are good because they made the clip more mysterious and helped show the relationship between Joe and the girl. The facial expressions also helped to show how the actors were feeling which was  good. Although i think you could make some of the shots quicker so they’re not on the screen for to long as this could make the opening quite boring.”

Amy Fraser:

“I like the use of the voice overs over the different shots, as it creates a mysterious effect, which is a good element to a thriller. The close-up shots are a really good idea, as they show the conection and the emotion between the two characters. I think the storyline will really work if you can make the chats online look real and not staged, which i think will be difficult but achievable. “

Poll

In order to gain feedback from other students and people using wordpress we placed a poll on Holly’s blog. We were hoping to achieve an understanding of what other people thought of the quality of our anamatic storyboard this would help us to know if we need to adapt it in anyway. We used a range of answers

Animatic Storyboard

Thriller Titles

When editing our opening thriller, our titles will play a big part in reflecting our storlyines and genre. We need to make sure they are effective and link in with our ideas. Before placing in our titles we are going to need to consider the following aspects:

• Transitions
• Size of Font
• Duration on screen
• Font style and colouring
• Effects
• Positioning on the screen
• Needs to reflect the narrative

We will also need to make sure we include:

• Production Company
• Producer
• Director
• Star & Co Star
• Editor
• Director of photography
• Production Manager

Hard Candy

We chose to look at this film as its storylines strongly reflects our current ideas for our own opening sequence. The film is based around a tense struggle between an online predator and the 14-year-old girl he’s set his sights on with plenty of twists and turns.

As we could only find a trailor of this particular film it doesn’t reflect what we are aiming to achieve however it still gives us an idea of the type of titles they were aiming for and the elements we need to consider. The credits begin very simply, with a plain black background and white bold letters enabling them to be the only focus for the audience, this would be useful in our clip as we need the viewer to pay full attention to the opening. The titles come across as laidback and calm as they fade in and out. The simplicity of these credits may be something we want to convey in our own titles, as the technique can often have an effective impact on the audience. The text scrolls aslong as each blind closes, creating a ripling effect. This would be a good effect to use in our thirller as it would resemble the closing of the blinds in the hotel room – as he is about to commite murder and rape on his daughter.  It also adds a mysterious atmosphere to the film, which is appropriate as we aren’t really sure who “joe” is until it is revealed it is her dad posing as a teenage boy.

Film Cover tiles:

The capital letters give a sense of dominence in the movie and emphasise a masculine side to the stoyline and characters, as ‘Joe’ will dominate our storyline and its happenings i think we should use strong bold capital letters.

Focus Group

    

 

We conducted a focus group in order to recieve class feedback on our film treatment. It helped us gain a mixture of opinouns on our strengths, weakness and any ideas would could introduce into our opening. However, at this point we hadn’t completely finished our treatment and so the class found it hard to put together the storyline and it’s climax.

Film Treatment

We have decided to make our thriller a mix of pyschological and crime genres, we thought these would be best as they proved to be the most popular on our poll results and broadcast responses. Orphan was also the most popular thriller on our questionare, focussing on psycholgical genre.

First ideas:

• psychological- schizophrenic hear voices, imaginary friend pressuring them to commit a crime or kill themself.
• Crime- murder, assult, holding people hostage, phedophilia

Second ideas:

After we thought of these four ideas we struggled to think which would be most effective and which we liked best. So we decided to get some more feedback on what our target population thought of them. We  asked other students and teachers what they thought was the best and most practical idea.

Feedback:

Looking at these results we have now decided to do our Stalking storyline through social network or dating sites as this proved to be most popular from our feedback.

Film Treatment:

Chantelle is a 16 year old college student; she is a very sociable and a pretty young girl. She is very confident and extremely popular with the boys.  Although she lives at home with her mum and older sister, she has a bad relationship with her father as he moved out when she was 3 years old. Her father’s departure has obviously affected her, as she is quite rebellious and is often seen out at parties drinking, smoking etc.

The film starts off with a close up shot of a photo frame (with a picture of her and her dad when she was younger), we can hear the mum shouting, and then the girl is heard stomping up the stairs.  Although the camera is focused on the picture frame, we see the girl come bounding through the door in the background.

She logs onto the computer, goes on a dating website and gets up a conversation from earlier that day. At this point we are going to edit it to make it appear that Chantelle is on webcam. We see a close up of the screen, and see Chantelle send the message “im back…” the person who she is talking to replies instantly, with “good”.

Chantelle picks up her diary, a high angle is used as she writes away, and we have a cross fade so we can see what she is writing. She writes about missing her dad, and how her life would be better if he was there, she talks about how the only person she has to talk to is ‘Joe’, he’s the only one who cares. She writes that she hates her mum for taking her dad away from her life at such a young age, and is confused about why he left.

In a completely different setting we have a close-up of “Joe” typing on the keyboard, the lighting is quite dark and the room is quite empty. Chantelle and Joe carry on talking, it is obvious from the conversation they have been talking for a while and they have built a strong bond. Joe is the only person she trusts anymore and always confides in him. She is caught bunking from school for the fifth time this term and is chucked out. Her mum feels she has let her down and has had enough of her bad behavior. Julie, her mum is a recovering alcoholic and for the first time in 16years turns back to the drink to ease her and her daughters’ bad relationship.

With her living in a broken home Joe assures her that everything is going to be alright, and that they could live happily together. Her sister finds her diary and sees chantelle writing about how much she misses her dad which makes Ella (her sister ) livid and upset as before chantelle was born she witnessed her father making sexual advances towards her best friend (who was only 15 at the time). Although Chantelle was never told this.

Chantelle talks to Joe more and more over the weeks and thier friendship continues to develop. After the continous arguments with her mum and sister and getting chucked out of school, Chantelle hits rock bottom. Her friends become concerned as she’s not being the bubbly sociable girl she once was however she pushes them away, believing she only needs Joe in her life.

Chantelle now has no friends and no family to turn to, and so she asks Joe to run away with her. Joe books a hotel on his credit card, but, the name on the credit card is not Joe, it is in fact “Mr. M Bourne”.  We see a flashback of Chantelle writing in her diary, when she closes the diary, we see the name on the front of the book as “Chantelle Bourne”. It becomes apparent to the audience that “Joe” is in fact Chantelle’s father mark.

Mark has always had a soft spot for his youngest daughter, and has been seeking revenge on Julie since she threw him out, his plan is to take Chantelle away from Julie, like she did to him. “Joe” tells Chantelle the address of the hotel, and she runs away the next morning to meet him there. Julie starts to threat when Chantelle hasn’t come home in weeks, when suddenly there’s a knock at the door.  It is the police, informing her that they have found a body which carries some of Chantelle’s possessions including a photo of her and her dad, the same picture that matches the one in the frame in Chantelle’s bedroom.  Julie is devastated, but the devastation soon turns to a sickening feeling, as she realized the only other copy of that photo belonged to Mark, and it becomes clear that Mark killed and raped Chantelle. Julie – a recovering alchoholic, drinks herself into oblivion.