Initial Ideas Presentation

Here is a general idea/plan in visual form.

Location Survey: Art Department

During Tuesday's lesson, Shir and I went down to the Art Department to do a location survey/vlog video. Since we didn't have a professional camera to film this video, I used my phone with a fish-eye lens. I tried to play around with the editing but I don't think it turned out to look that nice.
 Here is my attempt:

Lesson 3 (8/12/15) Planning- Change of plans(?)

In todays lesson, Shir and I went over some new plot ideas, aside from the art idea that we initially thought of, we want to explore and experiment with using dolls. I originally got the idea from American Horror Story: Coven where a character (middle aged mute man) has a strange obsession with dolls and often has tea parties; the feeling I got while watching was really unpleasant and uncomfortable- which I think would be really good if we could recreate that. A particular episode that I got inspired by was the one where he used the corpse of a girl as one of the dolls, the makeup and setting in the scene really was horrifying and unsettling, especially because the body was rotting and pale, in contrast to the makeup that was put on her (red lipstick/fake lashes) which makes the whole scene even more creepy.

However, this idea would be quite difficult in practice as we would need to buy (a lot of) dolls and find a new suitable location, also we want to keep in mind that it this project is a thriller not horror.

Since we really like this idea, we printed out some creepy doll images to stick on our inspiration board (Mr.Harrison gave us a wall to stick our stuff). 

If we really go through with it, Shir and I would need to find time outside school to go buy what we need. For example, makeup, dolls, outfits, tea sets (?). We are not sure if we will have to go through too much but we will have to make a decision soon.

Back to the original idea, we wrote up a plan to present in Thursdays' lesson.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cW4i_-w5sjm9haJ8WbHD63RMzaseLM-JSEQGm3FeRc4/pub

Children of Men

Camera 

• Protagonist is in the middle of the shot.
• Camera follows protagonist around, showing his importance (main character) and the storyline follows him.
• Not a lot of angles, making the scene more realistic.
• Handheld camera: more natural as we follow the protagonist- creates a realistic feeling.

Editing

• Not much editing for a more realistic look.

Sound

• Diegetic sound from TV giving context of the movie.
• Diegetic sound from surroundings in the cafe/street (shouting, car sounds) makes it seem more realistic yet creates anxiety and worry.
• Explosion sound
• Non-diegetic music in the background at the end, building up the suspense.

Mise en Scene

• The news tell us that it is the year 2077 (in the future), this builds up anxiety in the audience as it has a possibility of happening.
• Tuk tuk shows globalisation and diversity, different cultures coming together.
• Alcohol in coffee suggests that he may have depression (alcohol numbs you), giving the audience some clue to what kind of person the protagonist is. 

Representation:

 

Location: The cafe in which the protagonist buys coffee from looks relatively normal and modern, like on we would see today, this shows that in the year 2077, things are not that much different than they are today- from this, the audience can relate more with the characters in the movie and the struggles that they go through. The setting is Seattle, which is generally a nice, modern city. In the opening however, we can see that the streets are dirty and dark with trash every where, showing that the government doesn't care for the cleanliness of the streets/homes. With that being said, we can still see some modern elements such as the giant TV screen, but other than that- the buildings look pretty old.  We can see the different cultures from looking at the cars; the tuktuk shows globalisation and more diversity in the Western world.

Character: The man in the middle of the shot which the camera follows around is the protagonist; we can see from what he is wearing (black clothes) and his expression (stoic, calm) what kind of person he is. He looks almost annoyed at the commotion at the coffee shot, where people are crowding around to watch the breaking news, shows that he is uninterested and unfazed my the media and what is going on. He is shown putting alcohol into his coffee, from this we can guess that he may be sad/numb/depressed.

Narrative: Enigmas

• Why is the oldest person only 18- why did people stop reproducing?
• What struggles/problems does the protagonist have?
• Who/what caused the explosion?
• Why are the streets dirty and unkempt?
• What importance does the protagonist have and what will he do next?

Dexter Credits

Dexter is an American television crime drama mystery series. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a vigilante serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system.

Denotation:  Connotation

•  Mosquito Slap: Opens with a 'murder'; action seen as 'acceptable' and justifiable; Dexter smiles, showing his satisfaction- he finds pleasure in act of killing, the fact that he killed the mosquito before it sucked his blood suggests that Dexter likes playing games.
• Shaving: Shaving is a mundane action. Blood is a recurring theme and it appears once again in the shot where Dexter cuts himself. His reaction and 'calmness' to the blood running down shows that Dexter is unfazed by blood and gore- meaning that he is familiar. The cleaning up by letting the blood soak through the tissue also shows how Dexter is careful in cleaning up and collecting the blood of his victims throughout the show.
• Cooking breakfast: The cutting of the meat shows Dexter's skill with using the knife and cutting flesh; one of the ways in which he murders his victims; it also puts Dexter in an 'animalistic' light, which makes him seem more dangerous and threatening. For the egg, the yolk is represented as blood.
• Coffee grinding: The coffee beans are turned into grounds by being spun around and cut with sharp blades. This shows the destroying of one thing to use as another purpose.
•  Cutting Grapefruit: Again, Dexter uses a knife to carefully cut a grapefruit (really precisely and skilfully), the insides of the grapefruits after being juiced look like guts/distorted flesh. The accuracy of cutting reflects Dexter's tendencies to cut his victims up. The 'juice' of the fruit is represented as blood in this shot.
• Flossing: The tightness of the floss around his fingers shows that Dexter has more than one way of killing, although it looks uncomfortable and painful, Dexter finds pleasure in cutting off the circulation in his fingers.
• Dressing up: Dexter wraps his shoelaces tightly again, this suggests that this may be one of the method that Dexter uses to kill. The tightness of the cloth against his face shows suffocation but his expression seems to not suggest that he is suffering. 
• Out the door: The key suggests that being a serial killer is a secret and is 'locked up', the fact that he has neighbours suggests that he does not isolate himself (can still fit in with society) and that anyone can have a killer as a next-door neighbour. 

Camera

The extreme close-ups exaggerates and scrutinises every little detail. It is also suggestive and misleads the audience into thinking Dexter's everyday actions are something more violent. For example, the shoelaces scene resembles strangling someone and the shirt scene resembles suffocation or wrapping a dead body. Close-up shots also make everything more personal and intimate; we are in Dexter's personal space.

Editing

Jump cuts and rapid movements builds up suspense and keeps the audience curious.

Mise-en-scene

Dexter's morning routine is perfectly ordinary and 'everyday' but is put into a sinister light. For example, cutting meat looks like he is craving out human flesh. 

The dim lighting in Dexter's apartment contrasts the bright, friendly vibe in Miami (when he goes outside), this suggests that in his apartment, the audience are in his personal space- the darkness shows that his secret is dirty/dark.

Sound

The non-diegetic music is somewhat joyful and 'happy', which is unusual for a mystery/crime/thriller show. The contrast in the sound and images shows the two sides to Dexter's character, the calculated serial killer and the nice guy who he shows to his family and colleagues.

Inspiration

Here is a mood board that I made. I cut out the pictures from magazines that I found lying around the house. This is what it turned out to look like:

Here is a time-lapse of me making the board:

Inspiration Video:

Location Survey Vlogging!

On Sunday, Shir and I decided to hunt for locations! I filmed the whole journey as a vlog, which records our process and our thoughts in the moment :)

Before I met up with Shir, I bought a fish eye, wide, macro lens and a selfie stick for my iPhone as i feel it would look much better for a travel vlog type video. The editing was also really fun!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Location Survey- Rhythm/MRT

Another one of the locations that we chose was Rhythm HuayKwang. We set out on Sunday to film two of our locations(MRT Pahon Yotin and Rhythm). In the video, we mainly focused on Rhythm because we decided to cut out the MRT scene (we originally planned to do a chase scene, which is shown in the beginning of the video and in the vlog)

Location Survey- Bawarea

Here is the video that Shir filmed and edited. One of the locations we chose was Bawarea (Shir's house). Having been there once before, I really like the mood/vibe of the house, which is antique style which reminds me of a traditional Indian home. Shir's house also has dim lighting which goes with the Thriller theme and has a swimming pool (which we might need). Overall, I think Bawarea is a good location for filming.

In terms of the video, I think Shir really did a good job filming different aspects of her house and her angles are very artistic and well thought out. The editing is also great and the music sets the mood right.

So far, I am quite happy with the path that we are going, hopefully we can keep it consistent throughout the whole project!

Lesson 2 (4/12/15) Planning

In this lesson, we continued with the planning from last lesson. We developed and added in a few more plot ideas as well as thinking of more locations. Towards the end of the lesson, Mr. Harrison showed us a few videos from media students.
All this is recorded in a time-lapse video that I filmed, here is the edited version:

Lesson 1 (1/12/15) Planning- The first day!

For this project, I am working with Shir. We decided to name our project: 'PROJECT A.M', which came from the first letters of our last names put together :)

In todays lesson, we did mindmaps of the Plot ideas, Locations and the sub-genres that we are interested in.

We also filmed a time-lapse video of us working :)

Sub-genre Audiences

We used the website Yougov to see the types of people who watch Psychological Thrillers.

Sub-genre film

For the sub-genre film project, I got into a group with Shir and George and we decided to create a short film for two different sub-genres of thriller: Psychological Thriller and Horror Thriller.
Planning
I drew a story board for the storylines.

Here is the final video:

Camerawork

I was in charge of filming for this project, since we already planned the storyboard, it was easy to visualize the shots and didn't take much time to see which angles looked best. We decdied not to include too many weird/fancy shots and just stuck with the simple ones.

I personally really liked the glasses shot where the camera pans over to the actor placing his glasses on the sink.

Acting

George acted in the first one (psychological thriller) while Shir acted in the second one (Horror thriller). Both were very co-operative and had many ideas regarding the angles they think would look good. 

Editing

We all did the editing together but Shir did most of the sequencing. We experimented with different effects (making the tone more blue-tinted) or decreasing the brightness. George also did the sound separately for scenes that had loud external sounds and it turned out really good.

Evaluation

Overall, this project was extremely enjoyable and a good experience for me in terms of filming and editing. Furthermore, I had the chance to work with someone new and it helped me in terms of compromising and working with others.

In terms of the actual film, I think the reverse mirror wasn't as good as it could be as we got confused during filming, and the ending for the second film was slightly confusing. 

Next time, I would like to try acting as well as more advanced(?) editing. 

Credit Structure

TIMELINE

Idents: Columbia Pictures

Production Company: Hofflund Palone

Stars: 

Name of Film

Actors- Co-stars

Casting Directors

Sub-genre google slide

What are Thrillers?

Conventions of Thrillers

• Weapons/ Violence -guns, knives, cars
• Realistic storylines (so audience will think that it can happen to them)
• Crime/drama
• Hero and villian share similar charactersitcs (se7en-Mills/Somerset/Doe)
• Hide identity of antagonist (Shot of back/silhoulette/shadow)
• Mirrors (black swan)

• Non-diegetic sounds to create tension (Psycho shower scene)

• Quick/jump cuts
• Urban/ suburban areas
• Foreshadowing
• Quiet diagetic sounds (breathing/footsteps)
• Complex narrative
• Collateral 
• Vulnurable protagonist
• Moral hero
• Immoral character
• Unpredictability
• Cliffhangers
• Close ups (face/expressions/body parts)

• Dim lighting (suspense)
• Protagonist put in a threatening situation
• Mystery of crime.

Rear Window and Se7en

What do Rear Window and Se7en have in common?

• The antagonist ensnares the protagonist in an increasingly complex web, until the protagonist feels isolated and helpless.
• The narrative centres upon a crime e.g. theft, murder
• The protagonist is fallible and has an Achilles heel that is exploited.
• Themes of identity are common- mistaken identity, amnesia, doubles/dopplegangers.
• Themes of seeing reflection and mirroring- manipulation of perspective
• A series of enigmas are set up- only to be solved at the end.
• The audience is placed in the position of "voyeur".
• Protagonist will be in danger.
• The narrative presents extra-ordinary things in ordinary situations/settings.
• The micro-elements are used to build suspense

Rear Window

Rear Window 1954

• How tension is created
• Opening scene
• Dead dog

Cast:

Jimmy Stewart- Jeff
Grace Kelly- Lisa
Raymond Burr: Lars
Thelma Ritter- Stella

Creating tension:

Jeff (subjective camera/POV)

1) When the killer is returning Jeff knows, we know, Lisa doesn't.

2) We know, Jeff knows- helpless (guilt).

3) Call the police- we know the police are coming: do they get there on time?

4) We don't know what they are saying+ strictly concealed in the killer's flat.

5) The killer realise he is being watched- what is he going to do?

Opening Scene:

• Camera work: Pan & Tilt
• Location: Residence neighbourhood, apartments, city/urban, aberage district, compact\
• Man: 40's/50's mature man
• Thermometer: Hot

• Summer: Windows open, creates tention (rises) 
• Man shaving
• Radio, grand piano: class/status

• Morning: ''are you in your 40s, are ou tired and listless?''
• Dancer girl
• White pigeon 
• Male Gaze

• Broken his leg: ''Death'' (RIP), Helpless, name: L.B. Jefferies 

• Camera smashed

• Photographer: Sports- guts/ explosion/ bomb testing

• Risk taker
• Simple Photography, negative print
• Dead dog: Cynical
• "Did you kill him because he liked you..."
• Neighbourhood: people don't care
• Loyalty: Lost
• Non-judgemental relationships

Theory of Scary films

Why do we watch scary movies?

• To test ourselves 
• To get a think
• Everyone is a masochist 
• We know its not real
• Vent anger/frustration 
• Extreme emotions 
• To have a physical response--> heart rate, adrenaline, clammy hands

Zolf Zillman

Excitation Theory

• By experiencing negative and scary umagery we intensify the positive.
• We enjoy seeing the negative images being vanquished.

Aristotle

• Aristotle believed in CATHARTHIS
• We watch violence/negative images to purge supressed emotions.

Glen D Walters

1) Tension x suspense

• Created using narrative and filming techniques

2) Relevance

• The fears explored are relevant to the audience. They 'believe'.

3) Unrealism

• We know we are safe. We can experiment/explore.

Fears

What are the things we fear?

Se7en Location and Setting

Se7en Scenes

Scene 1: US- Urban City

Location: American city, New York City(?)

• Police sirens- Bad area with high crime rate
• Busy people- suggesting it is a city
• Car traffic noises
• Bad weather- Rain, musty, dirty, dank
• Polluted- buildings look dim
• Dead body being wheeled out
• Aggressive place: Mills gets bumped into- no one flinches/apoligizes

Time period: Late 90s

What world: Real world- Verisimilitude

Scene 2: Somerset's Flat

• Classy- antique furniture, neat and organized
• Lives alone- no family
• Knife for protection: dangerous place
• Diegetic sound 
• Hear sirens and traffic outside: City interrupting Somerset's personal space
• Loud noises outside contradricts the stillness/isolation inside.

Se7en Character Analysis

Se7en Characters

Mills

• Aggressive attitude: manhandles photographer downstairs.
• Big toddler: slave to his emotions/ has no control.
• Impulsive/erratic: emotions-taken over, kicks the door.
• Vulnerable: because he is emotional (end)/ has remorse.
• Passionate: love for dogs/wife.
• Try-hard: thinks that he can make a difference.
• Has hope.

Somerset

• Calm/ rational: facial expressions/ the way he talks.
• Avoids confrontation: Fails to control Mill's emotions (outside John Doe's flat).
• Wise: wants to understand meaning of crimes.
• Emotionally mature.
• Hypocrite: Has given up because people don't care/ his job is to care.
• Tired/ worn out: Seen too much.

John Doe

• Has characteristics of both Mills and Somerset.
• John Doe's character reflect (an extreme version) both of the detectives: the director conveys this from the seating arrangement on the car.
• Somerset in the driver seat and Mills on the passenger seat while Doe sits at the back, between the other 2 characters. Mills often looks back directly while talking with Doe- which symbolises his directness and the fact that he is not self aware that he shares many traits with Doe. Somerset looks at Doe through the rear view mirror- showing that he is aware that his character reflects Doe's.

Western Credits

Title Sequence

In this lesson, we learnt how to create an opening credits scene, we used the movie 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. This is the original title sequence in the movie.

We were given picture and audio files to create a short title sequence using Premiere.

1. First, we chose a colour of our choice as the background.

2. We then used key frames to allow the images to move, e.g. the spinning wheel was an image flipped/rotated over and over to look like it was actually moving. I found this step the most challenging.
3. We added the title/text to write the credits, this step, I found is similar to using photoshop and inserting a text.
4. At the end of the lesson, we were free to add in whatever we wanted to and play around the the sequence, I found a picture of Clint Eastwood on the Internet and decided to zoom into his face at the end.

This is how it turned out.

Sound Mixing (Point Break)

Sound Effects

In this lesson we were asked to substitute the audio in the chasing scene in the movie 'Point Break', this means that we used seperate audio files from external sources (e.g. Youtube) for sounds that the characters in the movie experiences. 

For example, using footsteps sounds while the characters are running, or explosion sounds when there is a bomb- we were to do this in a way that makes it seem as natural and realistic as possible. 

1. The teacher first showed us his own version, we didn't even realise that the sounds were layered on later.

2. We went to the computer lab to try it out on our own.

3. We were given the Point Break chasing scene and multiple sound effects files.

4. We unliked the original audio that came with the movie, and substituted it with our own external audio files.

This is my take on editing sound.

This lesson was really enjoyable and made me realize the importance of sound effects in films. I learnt that most movies use this technique, but as it is so natural the audience doesn't notice most of the time. 

What I found challenging was making the sound realistic, for example- if a character is running towards the camera, the footsteps would have to start out soft and increase as the character comes closer. Or in the bomb scene, where the explosion sound suddenly increases when the camera is directly filming the fire. 

One Minute Film + Evaluation

One Minute Film Project: Mean Girls

In this project, we were put into random groups of 3-4 people (I was grouped with Phoebe and Au), we then could choose what kind of film we want to create but it had to be under a minute. 

It took us quite a long time to come up with what film we would like to re-create in one minute, but we finally settled with the classic choice, Mean Girls!

Lesson 1
Since we wasted some time before settling with Mean Girls, some other groups were already ahead of us in terms of filming and scripting. Mean Girls is set in a high school so we didn't need a lot of props. In terms of how to sequenced the plot and scenes, we took inspiration from a video on Youtube.

In this lesson, we planned each scene based on this video, we also searched up the popular Mean Girls quotes to pull out the iconic ones to use in our video,
This was how we planned it:

We also asked some of our classmates to help out as we did not have enough cast. We had time left from this so we decided to shoot the first scene. 

THE FIRST SCENE:

We only needed Phoebe the cross the road so no additional cast members were needed. We headed outside of the sixth form building to the back of the school area behind the dining hall and filmed at the cross road. We wanted to go for that awkward 'far-away' shot of Phoebe crossing the road.

We also tried to create a parallel with the real movie by adding in the part where Lindsay Lohan's character was almost hit by a bus, there were no cars passing by so we used a gardener who was biking past. 

This was my first time operatating the camera, it was easy enough to use but we struggled with how to get it to record at first. This scene was zoomed in a bit but it was a wide shot.

Lesson 2

We decided to film all the parts without the Plastics since those scenes required some people who were unavailable. The quickly got right to it so we actually got a lot of work done in this lesson. We also changed some of the casts around and Allen (who had free period at the time) helped play a small part, which was really helpful!

THE SECOND SCENE

We went out to the grass area in the sixth form building so it looked like the real scene in Mean Girls. We wanted to keep the dialogue short and snappy like in the video we took inispiration from. 

I operated the camera again for the scenes we filmed in this lesson since I was the only one who wasn't in any of the scenes. It was quite a challenge because the lighting sometimes washed out the people in the scene and a lot of times it was out of focus. We alternated between full shots (of all three characters), close-ups of each character (when they were introduced) and also manually moving the camera when the characters are having a conversation. 

Lesson 3

This lesson wasn't as productive but we did film a scene of Regina and the teacher. We also made a burn book by printing the cover and sticking it onto a notebook. We realised that we couldn't shoot as many scenes as we would like as it would go over the time limit. Au and Phoebe went to film the riot scene (which we didn't end up using) while I put some clips together (basic cutting and sequencing).

Lesson 4 

This lesson was really rushed as at that point we only had half of the all the scenes and we have not started any editing at all. I bought in some props (pink clothes, hair accessories, lip gloss) and Phoebe bought in a wig (we also borrowed Saranya's purple wig). We filmed all the Plastics scenes here.

We managed to wrap everything up by the end of lesson 4... 

Editing

Phoebe and I stayed up to sequence and cut all the clips after school, we also filmed some of the parts that we forgot to film during the lessons and put them in, all this took about 2 hours. Phoebe took the computer home to edit more and it turned out really good! :) 

I especially like the opening scene where the text 'Mean Girls' kind of followed the guy riding the bike into the scene, I thought it went really well with the whole 'quirky' theme that we were going for. I also thought the hashtags were really creative and saved us a lot of time and dialogue. 

The music choice were already part of the real movie so that fit in quite well already.

Camera

This project is the first time that I worked on a camera like the one we used. I found that it is really easy to use and the quality is really good as well. Some scenes (scene 2) was kind of frustrating because of how we needed to constantly change the tripod level. Also, when I first started I didn't know how to change the focus so some scenes were out of focus. :(

FINAL PRODUCT

Evaluation

-It was really funny.

-It was edited really well. 

-It was shot relatively well :)

-We stayed pretty close to the video and also the real movie.

-TIME was our biggest issue. By the forth lesson, we were really rushed and even forgot to film some scenes or say some of the important dialogue. When Phoebe and I were editing afterschool, a lot didn't make sense and we had to go back alone to film some. Fortunately these were only the close-up scenes but it could have turned out really bad if other cast members were needed in those scenes. Next time I will try to organize my time more effectively and also make decisions faster(?)

- USE MICROPHONE! The audio turned out really horrible and in hindsight we should have used audio equipments.

-Confusing plot: in the peer evaluation post-it thing, a lot of people were complaining that the plot was difficult to understand. Since time limit was a problem, we couldn't put in a lot of scenes that explained some parts- this could make our video seem really confusing if you've never watched Mean Girls before. Again, we also didn't have a lot of time and rushed it so this could be the reason for the really confusing ending as well.

-Shaky and out of focus camera. These were mistakes made because we weren't familiar with the cameras yet. 

Evaluation by other students: