Report on how filming session 3 went

This is our shortest filming session and it is only for about 6-8 seconds of film.And it went quite well, we got the take we wanted to get and there were no obvious problems with it. Therefore, we are happy with it. Our actor goes to army cadets and therefore knows how to march etc and has the right costume. A criticism would be that our location wasn't perfect as we had to film at school and if we had more time, we would have filmed at another location, like Carver Barracks.

Filming the house scene

This week, we will be filming the house scene and we have made a dvd of the news report that will be played in the scene, so it will look like it has just come on the television when we click play. We have continued to do editing and have almost completely edited our main task. Despite the deadline for filming being tomorrow and none of us being able to film by then, we will finish this week and as we are well ahead on the editing, we will be finished in time.

Progress report on filming session 1

I thought that our first filming session went quite well, with what our group was trying to show, with all the different scientic experiments. I liked the different ways that we created all the effects with the food colouring mixed with the water. In one of the clips, there is a part of the film where the red food die was poured in the sink, which left a blood splatter effect. I thought that the camera work was at a high standard in regards to our fist filming session. I was pleased with the overall outcome of the filming that was done in the first filming session.

Sound For News Report

We have noticed that when we filmed our news report, the camera picked up lots of background sounds. So we have been looking at ways to get rid of it. We have been trying out using a noise gate on the sound which gets rid of the background noise, when our news reporter is not speaking. We have been experimenting with the use of the parametric EQ to try and get rid of the background sound when our character is speaking. So far, we aren't very successful, because it sounds quite robotic. But the hope is that if we play background music, then the unwanted background sounds will be inaudible.

Risk Assessment 3 - Army scene

Music for the main task V2

Music for the main task V1

I have been working on making the backing music for the main task using Logic Pro to record. This clip is 40 seconds of what I have come up with that I have put on youtube to try and get some feedback, so I can edit it accordingly. Here it is:-

Report on how filming session 2 went

Overall, we believe that our second filming session where we filmed the News Report scene was a great success. We managed to get about 8 takes of the same thing, so we can watch through them all and choose our favourite. One criticism of the filming session would be that it took a while as we had to do loads of takes because our actor kept getting his lines wrong. Therefore, one way to amend this would be to get a more experienced actor to be in our film.

Editing Tutorials

As my group and I will be editing fairly soon, I have been watching some more tutorial videos. As the official Apple tutorial videos do not work on most of my school computers, I have been watching some that are on Youtube.

Report on how filming session 1 went

All in all, our first filming session went well, we got about 3 minutes worth of film. Which will go down to about 10-20 seconds. Two of our group acted in our first session, and despite being novices in acting, they did well. We found it easy to get permission for filming, permission to use the room and permission to use the camera equipment. In our first filming session (the science lab bits) we were almost gifted with one clip as we noticed that the food colouring mixed with water looked like blood. And we decided that using an effect on the clip in final cut express would give a very good effect.

Results of Font choice survey

We have chosen font number 3 which is the most popular one on our survey and is our favourite.

Questionnaire for the font choice for our title sequence

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Film Name and Fonts used in title sequence

After much deliberation, we have decided to call the film: 'Unfortunate Incidents'. We have been researching different fonts to use for the title sequence using a website called www.dafont.com, which lets the user look through a variety of different fonts, and then download the chosen font. Here are a few we have been looking at:-

Risk Assessment 2 - News Report

This is the Risk Assessment for filming the News Report in the science room.

News Report

We have been preparing to do our news report for a quick scene in our main task. To give a sense of authenticity, we have made a background that looks like it could be real.

Our news reporter will be sitting in the lower middle area to give the news report.

Risk Assessment 4 - Filming at house

Lighting

In some of our scenes, the set will be dark, so we will need to find a way to give enough lighting to see what is going on, but for it to be dark enough to give an atmosphere. I suggest we borrow one of the lights from the media department as we can use this for our scene to give a good atmospheric effect.

This all will be especcially needed when filming at our house location as we will be filming fairly soon.

Certification by the BBFC guidelines

We believe that our film will be rated 15 by the BBFC, and here is why.

Discrimination

The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour - We will adhere to this as there will be not endorsement of any discriminatory language and with behaviour, our main killer, is brought to justice and therefore there is no endorsement of any bad behaviour.

Drugs

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable - We will adhere to this as as there will only be drugs that are affecting our character in a very bad way. Therefore, there is no encouragement.

Horror

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised - We will adhere to this as there will be no sadistic or sexualised menace or threat.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised - This is adhered to because there will be no dwelling detail that could be copied and easily accessible weapons will not be sexualised.

Language

There may be frequent use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’). The strongest  terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable - There will be no aggressive or repeated use of the strongest language, so this rule is adhered to.

Nudity

Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context - There will be no nudity, therefore the rules are more than adhered to. 

Sex

Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely  to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable - This is adhered to as there is no sexual activity in the film.

Theme

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds - Adhered to as the film is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and have a strong contextual justification - There will be no dwelling of infliction of pain/injury, it will be not very gory as it will just focus on quickly killing without any strong, gory content. No sexual violence.

Some of the content on this page was recieved from the BBFC website.

Script for News Report in main task

The News report will have a screen in the background with, in large text, 'London Network News'.

The News reporter will be wearing a smart suit.

For the background of our news report, we found this stock photo, which we could use:

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Communications_and_N_g263-Digital_Earth_p25978.html

To ensure that our news reporter will be always looking towards the camera, and not towards a script, we will have on large sheets, the entire script, that will be held next to the camera, so that our news reporter looks like they are looking at the camera.

'Turns on TV'
News Reporter:- 'At least 5 women between the ages of 18 and 25 have been reported missing in the area of North London. Images have been caught on CCTV of a suspect that is, male, believed to be aged between 18 and 23 that appears to be around 6 foot.'

Credits of our main task

At the start, we will have our main logo come up.

It will then come up with 'Presents, in association with 'Big films limited'

An 'Awesome film production'

Ben Smith

Sam Ruparelia

Amelia Quinn
Alex Pleasance
Josh Beaumont
Chloe Phillips

'Film Name'

Casting by Joey Josephson

Music by Will Hamilton

Edited by Bob Charlick, Imogen Heath and Eva Bobworthy

Produced by Matt Newby, Anthony Govey and Marisa Debarso

Written by Charlie McKendry

Directed by Teresa Green

Storyboard of main Task Version 2

Risk Assessment 1 - Filming in Science Lab

Lighting

As mentioned before in the Conventions post, we could consider the use of the shadow for dramatic effect, and to do this, we will need to think about the lighting.

This is set during the night, so as mentioned before in the Props post, we may need to have characters using their phones or torches as lights to see if the characters are outside.

When the characters are in the house, we could use dim lights to tie in with the mood being conveyed, or a night vision mode on the camera.

Location

For the scenes that are in the house, we are considering filming in Ben's house, as it is the most convenient from the school and a house is needed for the opening scene. The main part of the house that we will be using is the shots of one of the characters watching the news report on the television.

We may need to use another building as well for the scene with the main character and the science experiments and conveniently, the best location for this will be the science laboratories in the school.

We also need some outside locations to convey a mysterious mood, so for the exterior shots of the house, we will either use the outside of Ben's house or perhaps a forest or another leafy area.

For the scenes with the news report that is being watched in the house on television, we may have to use somewhere in the school like a large cupboard or small room but there are problems with that because there will need to be a lot of editing behind the news reporter as news reporters are not usually reporting from cupboards!

Props

For the character's props, clearly weaponary will be needed, as the main character is in the army. The characters may be seen with phones as well, so the main army character could have an iPhone. As there are other characters as well, some may be rich and others perhaps not as wealthy, so the phones could range from the iPhone to a basic £2 phone from Tesco if we decide to explore this area in further detail.
If this is set at night time, it may be necessary to include the character's with torches, if they are in a location such as a forest to help make the mood more mysterious and convey a dark mood. As the characters may not be prepared for any mysterious events, instead of having their torches, they can use the light from their phones in the night to explore the area.

Costume

As a group, we have decided that the main character will be in the army, so this will be what the character will be mainly wearing. This tells us what connotations he carries, so from his uniform we can tell that his background is military and his badges will show experience and rewards.

 This image is typical of what army officers wear, however, this is a US army uniform, so we might have a slightly different costume.

Conventions

Convention 1


One of the main conventions used in the thriller genre are cliffhangers: in Alfred Hitchcock's films, cliffhangers played a dominant role. In Saboteur, they had a literal cliffhanger:

The man on the Statue of Liberty was very good for its time, which was 1942.

Also there was the scene in Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest in 1959, in which there are 2 people hanging from the top of Mount Rushmore.
These two scenes show that cliffhangers/scenes that are very high above the ground are common in major Hitchcock films.

Convention 2

The use of music and suspense are very important conventions in thriller films. This is because they keep the viewer watching and is done well in the Hitchcock film Psycho, where the use of music keeps us watching when the woman gets killed at the beginning but the killer is not revealed and there is a feeling of suspense.

Convention 3

The use of blood, obviously, has a dramatic effect and is a key characteristic for this style of film. In the famous shower scene in Psycho, you can see the blood falling into the plug of the shower, and even though it is black and white, you can still tell that it is blood, which must have been difficult to do as it was made over 50 years ago. Also, you see the motion of the killer stabbing but you do not see it going into the victim's body.

This scene may have influenced other film directors to use blood as Hitchcock was one of the first thriller film makers, and it set the boundaries for thriller films, until over the years films became more graphic and you do see actual people being stabbed.

Convention 4

A very powerful way of keeping the viewer watching and making them know a murder is about to happen is the use of the shadow. The viewer knows that someone could be killed or is being watched, keeping the tension and making the viewer wanting to know what will happen next. When focusing on filming when we are considering the lighting, we could think about using a shadow for a dramatic effect on the viewer.

Conventions of Thrillers

There are various different conventions that Thriller films have. One is use of close ups. In various Thriller films, close ups are used to provide emphasis to different things. For example, a close up of a gun can provide emphasis for something about to happen. This is shown in this image:-

We could use this idea in some way to provide emphasis for the army theme that is strong in our Thriller. Or even use this idea for the science theme that is strong in our Thriller. Here is an example of that:-

Another convention that is strongly used in Thrillers is the over shoulder shot, this gives an emphasis of following/stalking/chasing. I'm not sure if we could use this, but it is a heavily used convention in Thrillers and if we find a place to use this, then it is good to use. Here is an example of it:-

A convention that is used in many Thrillers is the film being about Good vs Evil, or the Protagonist against the Antagonist. We could use this in a sense with our character. Here are some examples of it:-