Location for our final task

As we wanted this to look like it was set in a hotel, we thought we would try and get a hotel room to film in. I called the four pillars on the Abingdon road to see if we could use a room for a couple of hours, unfortunately they said that this wouldn't be possible.
This would have been a perfect location for our idea as the mise-en-scene would have been perfect
However one of my group members sent email to the holiday inn near woodstock and they said that it would be fine to use there location to film our final task.
However after a group descusion we decided against filming in this location, as we wouldnt have another chance to re-film if something wasnt quite right.
So unfortunately we were back to square one again, but we started planning again staraight away.

Inspiration for our new idea

We spent a long time as a group watching others AS main tasks and taking notes and getting ideas about camera shot/angles, music, and use of editing. After sharing our new idea managed to come up with quite a few different ideas.
We decided that we wanted to have a shower scene, our plan was very similar to the plan in the first 50, hoever with a frew slight changfes, we wanted to have a variety of different shots.

Plan for our task...

* Faid from black to the moving image (diagetic music covering)of Man opening the door and walking through it (long establishing show of man,showing whole body).
* Man looking around room , standing in same position as he starts taking his jacket off and removing tie.
* While still removing jacket and tie moves towards camera and takes a box out of his pocket and chucks the tie and jacket on the chair.
* He looks towards the camera with a blured image with camera still focused on his face, with ring box in his hand.
* Then the camrera focused on blured image (which is a broken glass) and his face is out of focus, his hand then moves into the focused part of the moving image and he places the ring box.
*He then walks towards a door which is near the end of the rook (camrea follows him and becomes an over the shoulder shot)
*He pushes door open and shower noise starts to take over the diagetic sound (classical/ soft music) and he comes across his partener sitting in a running shower fully clothed with make up down her face (camera establishing her and moving closer to her) 
* Camera zooms out he joins her sitting in the shower, she rests her head on his shoulder and shuts her eyes.
*(use of flash backs) faids into black as camera goes closer to her face, then goes clack and faid into blurred, very quick moving images (backing music heartbeating) 4 flashbacks faiding into eachother;
1. Hooded man entering room
2. Man moving towards woman and woman throwing/ dropping glass
3. Man attacking woman
4. Woman falling into shower
* Faids out and title appears

Problem with our main task

After 6hours of filming, we reviewed the film as a group and had various discussions coming to the conclusion that the footage we had looked more like a T.V drama other than a film. We came up with a few ways of sorting this problem out, we wondered if editing and adding diagetic sound would solve this problem but we didn't want to risk it as we still thought this would solve the problem. We then decided to come up with a few more film opening ideas that we could use.
Although we spent alot of time getting the actors ready and buying props for mise-en-scene and not using the footage we produced i don't feel that it was a total waste of time as, as a group we have learnt alot of things from it, for example; Organisation and mise-en-scene are essential, and i feel that we have got closer as a group therefore are able to work better together.

Now and Then (1995) Part 3

This is the scene in "Now and Then" we looked at for inspiration for our final piece as we were following the theme of people being possessed and performing necromancy/ divination.

Animatics for our film opening

After deciding the location for our main task, which was Elise's house, we then decided to take our animatics. These pictures show all the shot types we are hoping to shoot in our final piece. (costumes are not used in these images)

 

Plot for our Main Task

At the start of planning our Main Task we didnt have many ideas for the plot of the story, the only thing we knew was that we wanted the genre to be a horror. After having many group discussions with lots or agreements and disagrements we finally came up with the plot of the story that we were all happy with.

The plot:

Opening- Two girls getting ready together for a halloween party, as they are getting ready the devil appears in the background of various shots but only the audience can see this at this moment in the film. The reason we did this is because we wanted to make the audience jump in the first few minutes of the film as this would build tension and really pull them into the rest of the film. They then go to the part but on there way through the grave yard to the church hall they encounter some other girls and take part in there spookey halloween activity before they were going to enter the party.

Middle- The middle of our film is the climax, for this we looked at a scene in 'Now And Then' where the girls are sitting in a Circle near dear johns grave trying to bring him back from the dead, we though this would work really well with our film as the two girls get taken over by the devil and often when people perform necromancy/ divination they get taken over or possesed by the devil as shown in now and then.

The main girls in our film are the 'chosen ones' of the devil and vanish after a bolt of lightining leaving the other girls in destress wondering what happend, if it was a halloween trick or if this church yard was actually hawnted like everyone had said.

As the other girls are worrying about them, the one missing girls are being possesed leaving the other girl to watch the torture her best friend is going through.

Ending- After the one girl gets possesed, the devil turns her against her best friend and forces her to torcher her friend ending in death and devistation, we want to make the ending as dramatic as possible creating a cliff hanger for the audience as this will create tentiona nd mess with there minds leaving them to figure out what would happened next, which would be explained in the next film.

Evaluating My Groups Pre-Lim

Our group had to prepare a two minute preliminary task, using the schools basic cameras and editing software. After preparing our storyboard and synopsis we began the filiming. Only two out of the four of our group members acted in our preliminary making it easier to prepare. Being such a short task to prepare also meant that finding a location, preparing a script and actors wasnt much of a challenge, however this is something that must be considered when we begin to prepare our main task.

The black screen and white font at the beggining helps to set tension before characters are even presented to the audience. Elises character suddenly appears from the trees giving an element of surprise when first introducing her as a character to the audience. Tension is built through little shots of elises face which is commonly used in films to build up the tension we wanted to get across. This lack of facial shots builds tension as leads the audience to believe that something is going to happen, and already begins to conotate that something bad is going to happen or that elises character represents something negative.

This tension is broken when dialogue begins between the two characters, and they are introduced using more warm fonts, suddenly presenting the characters with a name breaks this feel of tension that the audience have been presented with, as they are gradually introduced to the the characters. Overall i believe the introduction of the characters and general camera shots could have been imporved in our pre- lim.

Our groups prelim

Planning Main Task

It is important for the camera operator to notice exactly what is in the mise en scene before every take- this should be shared with other group members if possible.
To make a list of tasks then to allocate a group member for each of them is very important.
Previous years projects can show us two things- how to be right and how not to rong.
Having more then one take of every scene is necessary to gain maximum quality when shooting your main task.
Getting actors and each others contact detials shared around the group participants can be very useful when getting togther in preparation for filming.
Sound is crucial to the early planning, as is the font as it will the audience to establish the style, tone and atmosphere for the piece.
Checking weather forecast can be crucial if weather is a key part in the process of filming the main task, checking the avaliabilty of group members can also be important, however filming should go ahead even if absent as your group may get behind with the filming schedule.
Having a back up plan is always important as things may not go according to plan, the piece may not turn out how you first expected so its important to have a back up plan.