My Initial Idea

The plot


The first stage of preparing for our coursework was for each individual memberof the class to pitch our idea for our horror or thriller sequence. The basic outline of my idea was typically set late at night in a dark old house, a little girl hears a noise that awakens her. The little girl gets up and walks round her house in search of what the noise is. After much looking for the noise, she finds nothing and decided to return to her bed. The camera follows her, from behind, into her bed room, which is moonlit and watches her go back to sleep. The camera then slowly pans around the little girls bedroom before stopping to focus on a toy clown sitting on the end of the girls bed. The camera zooms up to the clowns face, when typical fairground music starts to play the clowns eyes start to move, giving the conotation that clown is alive and supernatural.


Why clowns?


The reason I choose clowns was becuase personally I have a phobia of clowns. Anyone who has watched Stephen King's It would never be happy to look at a clown again. Personally, i find that clowns scary becuase of the idea that you do not know who is behind the mask, i.e. an unknown identity.




















"There is nothing laughable about a clown in the moonlight."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuGaypXw7ro

Setting, Cast and Props

As i have previously mentioned the setting for my idea would be set in a old house, with creaky floor boards and dark rooms. I pictured the girls bedroom to be set in an attick with an anex window allowing moonlight to flood into the room. As for the cast, we would onky need one member of the cast and this would simply be the little girl, preferably age 4-6. I chose this age as she is so young it make the audience feel sypathey for the little girl. As for props, the house would be needed, the props in the little girls room and of corse the toy clown.

Horror Posters

This is a saw poster, it is effective because it is quiet plain, this means that your attention is focused on the paradigms. the teeth are particularly good as they are on strings which makes leading eyes (your eyes are lead down the lines). In addition to that there is a saw blade at the top of the poster, linking to the title, and obviously placing the image in the viewers mind that it will be a gory and bloody movie. This idea is reinforced by the hanging teeth, which has connotations of torture

Horror

What is a Horror

Horror films are movies that aim to bring out the emotions of terror and horror from viewers. A typical horror film usually tends to focus more on the fears of people, such as clowns but also the idea of being watched, stalked, threatened and the dears of the unknown. The plot of a horror movie frequently involves themes of death, supernatural ( devil and aliens) or mental illness. It is common for a horror movie to include a villain or monsters, these represent the battle of good vs evil.

In horror movies, a great deal of suspense will be used to help build up in the audiences minds. They are usually related or set in everyday situations, so the audience are able to relate it to themselves.

Children are also used in horrors, the idea of a child being possessed or the idea of the child having more control than an adult or even acting like an adult. Children are view scary because of the setting they are placed in, if you place a child in a play park they are not scary but if you place them in a grave Yard they now become scary.

Thiller

What is a thriller

Thrillers may be defined by the mood that they cause; fearful excitement. An easy way of defining a thriller is if it 'thrills' then its a thriller.

A thriller is a genre of movies that has the aim of keeping the audience on edge, thrillers often overlap with other genres. Many people find thrillers very enjoyable, and they appreciate the complex plots associated with this genre. Thrillers typically involve sudden plot twists and lots of red herrings (false expectations. There are also many sub- genres; action thrillers ( bond movies), crime thrillers (reservoit dog), spy thriller and psychological thriller

Thrillers create fear, apprehension and suspense in the hearts and minds of audiences. When thrillers have been increasingly influenced by horror or psychological-horror exposure, this element has become common to heighten tension

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro is a software package the runs on G5 macs. Final Cut Pro is a non-linear
editing package. The softwear is based on a time line based.
First of all,we started off learning wiht matt about the final cut server. This is a system that our school has, it is a way of backing up our projects incase anything was to happen to it. This allows us to check "out" our work, work on it and then check it back "in" for safe keeping.
Secondly, We learnt about logging rushes. Rushes are another word for our filmed material. This process allows us to selct the best shot and then place the best shots into a "logged bin". To select the best bits press "i" at the beginning of the wanted cut and "o" at the end of the wanted selection.
Thirdly, We had to place the shots in chronilogical order on the time line and then trim and cut them in order to create the illusion of simultaneour event.
Forthly, we need to ass any additional sounds that we wants, this includes soundtracks and any shound effects.
Finally, to create that final hollywood touch to your peice you have the option of adding special effects.

Prelim Task Evaluation

For our prelim Evaluation we got given a script to follow and told which shots to shoot. We got designated a class room to shoot in, at first I was slightly unhappy with our location, but after setting everything up it didn’t look so bad. My role while filing was camera control, this meant that arranged the camera each time checking that everything that was meant to be in the frame is in the correct place. I was very impressed with our light, we had the light on the victim and then half way across James’s face, this really added to the atmosphere. The lighting was quiet hard and bright this meant the victim looked a lot more scared. We also had the surrounding area to the set pitch black this was effective as it meant that we had the darkness in the edge of the frame so the protagonist was able to walk out of the dark and into the light.
Each time I moved the camera I bubbled it this was to make sure that the camera was level, what we wanted to shoot although some directors have an uneven camera purposely. We have a slight problem with our sound equipment, this ment int he end we had to use a boom microphone,

this left us wiht the problem of Ben making sure that the boom microphone was not in the frame, as it often was. obviously the picture on the left is not Ben.
I thought that the angles that we used were very effective and looked good in the outcome. As for the order of shoooting, we shoot all the wide shots first, we then moved into the over the sholder shots and finally did the close ups, not only will this make editing easier but it also was a lot easier to shoot. As for the 180degree rule, we stuck to it but we were on the line of 180, we stuck to it in order to make it easier for us and to amke sure that the actors stayed on the right side of the camera.

Introduction to photoshop

We had an introduction to Photoshop from Matt. In this lesson we played around with many things and got taught things like; the burn tool, when using the selected area gets darker, the dodge tool which makes the selected area lighter and the clone tool that allows you to select a certain area while holding down alt and multiple the image.
This is the piece of work I put together in the lesson by just playing around.

Stills Camera
Within this lesson on how to use photoshop, we also go taught to go and use a camera and shot photos of our selves. As I am also studying photography, I already knew how to use a camera and the basics of how to shot a decent photo. We went out in the lesson to shoot photos of ourselves in order to edit them in photoshop and practise using photoshop.

Resivoir dog analysis

The opening sequence of the film reservoir dogs depicts eight men eating breakfast at a diner. Six of the eight men are wearing matching suits this almost signifies almost a uniform and that there is no real difference between the men. At the beginning of the scene you here Mr Brown discusses his comparative analysis on Madonna's "Like a Virgin", as if fades up from black.

All the sound in the section of film I am analyzing is diagetic. As the conversation between the eight men continues the camera pans around the circle, from the outside, the mise en scene alternates between a close up of the person talking and other people’s reactions. It is made clear that a few of the men at in the diner are smoking, not only does this signify that it was set during a period where it was acceptable for a person to smoke inside, but it also signified typical gang behavior. Joe then interrupts the discussion about Madonna and this is also when the camera stops panning and is stationary, showing a close up of Joe. As for the camera movement during the discussion between Joe and Mr. White, the camera jumps between the two people depending on who is talking. This not only helps the audience understand who is talking but shows the face which carries a lot of emotion.

As for the dialect used, from their accent you can tell that they are from America and because of the setting, and the slang and swearing used you get the impression either they have had little or no education, in addition to that, this reinforces the idea of gangs. We also can tell that the setting in terms of time period is not modern as some of the props on the table in the diner represent objects from a older period, for example the mobile phone is very big and in height is the same size at a bottle. The bottles also signify again more typical gang behaviour as it is set in the morning as they are having breakfast but yet have already started drinking.

After the discussion between Joe and Mr. White the camera starts to pan again around the circle. Once again Joe interrupts them, and they all immediately listen to him, this represents Joe’s powers in the group and huarache. Except for the wide shots of Joe a large percentage of the shots are over the shoulder shots that then show close ups of head and shoulders, again signifies that Joe is different from the other men there. When Mr. Pink is forced to give up a tip, the camera changed between the two people in the conversation. The eight men really stand out in the setting, the diner, as there is a strong juxtaposition between the light white walls of the diner and the dark serious suits that the men are wearing. This implies they are out of place and perhaps should not be there. In addition to this, again when the conversation takes place about Mr. Pink giving up a tip, the camera jumps from each character as they speak, this is so the audience is able to get a clear image of their facial expression and what their reactions are to the conversation. At this moment all the close up head shots are clearly shown that it is over the shoulder, not only does this show us what the person is seeing himself but also it reminds us that the men are sitting in a circle because of the setting. The camera focuses on the people in the mise en sene, the background and the foreground is out of focus, this shows they are the most important thing in that frame and they are the main focal point of attention.

After the conversation about Mr. Pink leaving a tip, Joe then interrupts again. The camera then shows a wide shot, this is the first time that we get to see the whole table itself and everybody sat at it. The shot is slightly higher than eye level but this allows us to see over the heads of people at the table.