Target Audience

As a target audience for our filmsequence we thought of an audience of both genders and that the film would be for a big age range (16-50), as it is not a classical horror film, but more a psychological thriller, as it deals with psychological illness and challenges the institution of a "home for mental ill people". We also wanted to build upon the fact that you first just see a man throwing paper and then you see, that he is standing very high upon a roof and suddently jumps. So we wanted to shock the audience with that.



Distributor of our film

We tought of the dristibutor "Lionsgate", because it also supports smaller budget films (like ours is).

Location requirements:

We filmed at Hurtwood on top of the theatre, because there is a nice wall and a good view, and it looked really high. As main and only light source we used the sunlight and we were very lucky, because it was a nice day. We first thought of shooting at Ewhurst, because they have really nice corridors, but as we changed the idea and we did not need the corridors and stairs anymore, also you were not allowed to 'jump' of the roof or to get even up there. So our location was on top of the theatre and at the bottom of the theatre.


Cast

As cast we only needed one main person, a young man, who wants to end his life (that was the role he was meant to play)and jumps of a roof. We casted James Burke as the main guy and also we needed some statists that walk past the dead body and are looking shocked. For that we did cast: Charlotte Clark, Laura...
We did not encounter any problems nor have any difficulties with the cast and had a very good time.
Here are some pictures of the cast:


















Props and costumes

As props we had primarily our main prop, a dummy called "Billy" who we had to throw of the roof later. We made the dummy with an overall that we stuffed with newspaper, a pair of boots stapeled on it and a had out of styropor that we painted a face on and stapeled red hair (similar to James) on.
Apart from that, Lara made a sign with "Home for the mental ill" on it that we sicked next to the door of the theatre where we did throw Billy of the roof. Then we had a pack of papers with banknotes printed on them.
As costumes we had a blue jacket for James and Billy and jeans for them. We also needed fake blood for the "corpse".

Production process

We changed our idea again, here is the storyboard of our new sequence:

Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 70 to play the roles of both guards and prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Roles were assigned at random. They adapted to their roles well beyond that expected, leading the guards to display to authoritarian and even draconian measures. Two of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. The experimental process and the results remain controversial. The entire experiment was filmed, with excerpts soon made publicly available, leaving some disturbed by the resulting film. Over 30 years later, Zimbardo found renewed interest in the experiment when the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal occurred.

this was the beginning of an article we looked at (full article on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment)

other articles we looked at were:

• http://listverse.com/2008/09/07/top-10-unethical-psychological-experiments/
• http://www.highestfive.com/mind/5-unethical-psych-experiments/

But we did not finalised our idea yet and looked in the internet at psychological experiments (like the 'Stanford'-Experiment and other unethnical experiences) to get some inspiration.
From there we thought more about the whole 'mental' home idea and how we could still keep our ideas of running down corridors and trying to escape from a house.

The first group meeting

When we had our first group meeting, we discussed about the 'Run if you can' idea and how we could make it more simple. We changed it to having only two people in the building. We worked out a storyboard for the story and thought ofof where lighting would be useful, where we would shoot and who we were going to have as actor.

Working out my main idea for the sequence

This is my worked out plan for my sequence (which we did not do in the end, because there was too much storyline in it)

Planning My Sequence

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But I thought that an red eyes would look even more scary (like in this poster "The eye").

This poster "The ghost castle" gave me the idea of having the ball in a scary castle. I also liked about the poster the scary moonlight and that the two big holes\windows in the caste look like eyes. This and also the next picture ganv me the idea of putting two big eyes in the background.

The poster "Dance of the Dead" inspired me to use the theme of a ball. The knife in that picture also helped me with my poster, because I wanted to have a good symbol for the murder at the ball.

These are Horrorposters I got some ideas of. From this poster "Behind the mask" I got to my idea of the maskball.

This my horror poster I did with Photoshop. The poster is an advertise for the "film" "The Maskball".
The scary castle in the background is there to create a mysterious and frightening atmosphere and is also the place, where the ball is. The couple dancing on the right side is a couple at the ball, not knowing yet, that something horrific might happen to them. This horrific thing is shown with the bloody knife above their heads.
I coosed a hand with red fingernails holding the knife to create a challenging atmosphere, because it is not only scary men who are dangerous murderers, but it can also be the innocent girl next door, that you would never expect to kill someone.
The mask on the left hand side is there to underline that it is a maskball and you don't know who is behind the mask. I chosed a white mask, because it looks (especially in front of the black background) even more scary and weird. The mask is also pale to show that anyone could be the murderer.
The red eyes, that stare out of the darkness are looking directly at the person looking at it and look a bit cat\animal- like.
Then the last two elements of my poster is the text. The title : "The maskball" and the "coming soon". I placed the title next to the white mask so that it is clear, why it is a maskball and the "comming soon" next to the knife, because it could also mean "the murderer is coming soon".

prelim post production evaluation

PRELIM POST PRODUCTION EVALUATION

We first opened our edit proxy in final cut pro.
Then for the logging we created a log bin, in which we could store our shots, we selected and rejected the different shots, by clicking 'i' for in and 'o' for out to define the shot, then the bit with the shot was highlighted. Then we clicked on 'modify' to name the shot (for example: 'over the shoulder shot') and save it in our log bin. We did this so they were easier to find when it came to editing.

We chose the following shots: 'wide shot', 'mid shot', 'over the shoulder of person A', 'close up on person B (low angle)', 'close up on the gun', 'final shot:mid shot of person A', because we wanted greater variety of shots, to make the scene interesting.


We had to find the 'best fit' and also watch the sound, so that the movement was fluent and that parts of the dialogue were not repeated.
The purpose of continuity editing is to ensure, that only the relevant story points are shown, to manipulate time and space (temporal editing, to shorten scenes ('Where are you?'(on the phone)-opening the door--> the person just arrived at the other persons home, no answer is nessacery (teachers episode 12) or to demonstrate that something takes longer now (for example: the schoolway for the now disabled Kurt(also teachers Episode 12)) in the narrative.

Editing is also important to force the audience to identify with the right characters (strange characters: weird light, angular angle -> something is wrong with that person) and editing is also used to make sure the story makes sense to the audience (give the audience clues, help them understand the story).

It is also very important while editing to use the specific film language, because a log bin (for example) is not a bin for bad shots, but a file for the good shots.

We also worked on organising our shot, by using STORYBOARDS. We took a look at different storyboards, for example the storyboard from Gladiator, to get an impression, how important stoyboards are and how you have to draw them.

Storyboards are very important because, when you work for example with actors with different nationalities and they don't really understand, what they need to do, they can take a look at the picture of the scene (that everybody understands),work faster and create the scene.

Storyboards are not only important for the actors, but also for the lightening, because storyboards also include lights and shaddows.
The producers can forsee problems and the art departement knows which parts of the location are going to be in the shot.
Storyboarding is especially useful for complexvisual sequences e.g. elaborate shots or sequences with special effects.

We also had to draw a storyboard ourselves (from a car scene) and we had to think of the different shots we wanted to have in that scene.
The storyboards help to think about, how the filmsequence is going to look.

The shot order is really important for a scene like the one we did, because the dialogue in the scene had to make sense and all the movements and words couldn't be overlapped, so we had to be really exact in what order to put our shots.

One shot ,when person B walks out of the room, was quite difficult, because we first had a close up on his face and then a wide shot.
In both shots he was walking out of the room, so we had to find the exact moment, when he is turning around, so that the two shots were connected right to oneother and so that there was a continuity, so that the story made sense.

We had to cut all the shots and we had to find the "right" way of editing them.
We had as final shot a close up on the gun on the table because we wanted to explain the real issue of the dialogue to the viewer just at the end, so that they had to guess for themselves during the scene what exactly person A had to do.
We also did this to create tension for the viewer.
We cut from the closing door to the gun to link the story.

This is a picture of the final cut pro programme.

Final Cut Pro is a non-linear software package and timeline based (picture).
We learnt all about Final Cut Server, a system that allows your project to be checked 'in' and 'out' to a seperate server, which is a good and reliable way that helps to not lose work.
We then logged our shots, by selecting the best ones and taking them into a 'log bin'. We selected these by making 'in' points and 'out' points. Then we placed the shots chronologically on a timeline and timed and cut them to create the illusion of a simultaneous event.

Finally we looked at sound, which was not possible with my group, as we did not record any, but like the other groups we had to check that the movement of the mouth was right and that through the cutting and moving of shots, the story still made sense.

Prelim task Evaluation:

I filmed my scene in the Guy's classroom and this worked well as a location for my task, because my task could have been filmed nearly everywhere because you can interprete it in many different ways. However it is important to have a door for the scene because person B enters the room through a door. I took an active role by filming I was alwas shouting "standing by, roling, Action!" and I also did some of the filming (over the shoulder shot, close up) and set up the lighting in the right way. We had light, hard edge light. The lighting was important for the scene because it light directly the actors and it made a nice shadow of person B what made him seem more "dangerous". The scene is a very clear scene and so it was effective for us to have it in a very clear light. The only problem with the lighting was that we could not really change the angle because if we did the shadows would have changed and that would look unlogical and weird for the viewer.
We did set up the camera correctly and checked that the tripod was level in each shot. We checked that the shots were filmed correctly and did most of the shots twice, one was a bit difficult (over prson A's shoulder) because she (A) was first sitting on a chair and then stood up, so we needed to find the exact angle, so that we could still see both of the actors.
We started our filming with a wide shot, because we thought during our planning with the story board we were given that this would be a good idea. We did all our shots acording to the storyboard but in the end we also did some extra shots (like a close up on the gun) and when we were editing we did this more freely.

Basic Stills Camera work

Photography brings a visual language that is universal in understanding. It has its own vocabulary which consists of shapes, textures, patterns, lines, colours, shade of light to dark and sharp to blurry images. We must arrange visual elements together in an organized manner if our photographs are to convey their meaning clearly and vividly.
One lesson we worked with digital cameras and made lots of different shots. We looked at Extreme Wide shots, very wide shots, wide shots, mid shots, medium close ups, close ups, extreme close ups, cutaways, cut-ins, two shots, over-the-shoulder shots, point-of-view shots and weather shots.

We also tried to focus on the rule of thirds (see picture).
The Rule of Thirds splits the picture into 9 parts. As shown in the picture the focus is on the part in the middle (left picture: the boy’s eyes, nose and mouth) and especially on the upper left corner of the part (left picture: the boy’s right eye), because as English people read from left to right, they also look at pictures the same way.